Al Sharpton, civil rights activist HARDtalk

Now on BBC News, it's time for HARDtalk.

Welcome to Hardtalk.

I'm Stephen Sackur.

One of the bleaker themes of Barack Obama's presidency has

been the crisis in relations between black America

and the criminal justice system.

We've seen unarmed black men shot dead by the police and officers

gunned down in what appeared to be acts of vengeance.

A new movement, Black Lives Matter, has given voice to

anger on the streets.

Well my guest today is Al Sharpton, the veteran often controversial

civil rights campaigner.

Who speaks most effectively for black America today?

Al Sharpton in New York City, welcome to Hardtalk.

Thank you.

Mr Sharpton, you've been working on the cases of individuals

and their families who have been shot, gunned down by the police,

for an awful long time.

I remember you were working with the family of the teenager

Trayvon Martin back in 2012.

Since then, matters seem to have gotten worse, not better.

Why is that?

I think matters have been recorded more.

I don't think that they are any worse or better.

I think that because of social media that we are seeing a lot more,

what many others have been saying all along,

you must remember the case of Trayvon Martin was just a couple

of years ago, which spurred some of the young groups that started,

then some of them died out, then when Eric Garner happened

and Ferguson happened with Michael Brown, some new young

groups went into being and went forward, but my group the NAACP

and others have been doing this for a long time and were the groups

that these families called in, so we didn't just work on these

campaigns, we came in because the families wanted

to sustain a fight that they knew is a fight bigger than one case.

There is a systemic problem with policing and the black

community and it has to be handled with a sustained movement.

Right, I mean the interesting movement is, yes, you are right,

the families in many of these cases called you in and other well-known

figures in the civil rights movement, but out on the streets

there seemed to be a very different tone, a radicalism,

a desire for immediate action, which you seem to be out

of tune with.

Well, that's a media absurdity.

The first marches around Trayvon Martin and around

Eric Garner were our marches.

We were the ones leading them in the streets.

What you're trying to confuse is those that may come

into a movement already started and have a different position,

they are speaking to a new mood as opposed to some other mood.

No, they are speaking to different tactics,

as we on the street are speaking to our tactics, and that's no

different than in the 1960s.

Let me finish.

Let's talk tactics.

Let me finish.

There's no difference between Dr King when he was leading

a movement in the '60s and they wanted to riot,

he opposed that at the same time.

There was a Mandela and ANC and PAC, so a lot of times the media tries

to categorise things wrongly.

Right, I'll come back to that but before I do pick a way in how

you see Black Lives Matter and other movements which have developed a lot

of strength in recent times.

Why do you think under a black president, a man who served two

terms, almost eight years in office, that far from resolving some

of these issues or at least making them look as though they're

on the way to resolution, as we both agreed they

are as bad as ever?

Because I think he inherited a real institutional problem,

more than anyone preceding him tried to deal with those problems.

This is the first president that started the commutation of sentences

for those that were in prison for nonviolent drug crimes,

that was started and became law way before he came in,

and he appointed the first black Attorney General and the second one,

when we never had a black Attorney General in the history

of the country, that began saying to their prosecutors stop asking

for these long sentences on nonviolent criminals.

He was the first president that convened having a task force

on policing, where he put the civil rights groups like my national group

and the NAACP on and some of the activists in Black Lives Matter,

so I think he has had to try and turn around

some historic negligence.

What do you say to some of the black intellectuals,

commentators, guys like Michael Eric Dyson,

who writes a lot in the New Republic and elsewhere, who have said,

I grew disillusioned with Obama's timid responses to this racial

crisis, with how willing he was to disclaim his racial

affiliation, his slow actions on police problems,

his reluctance to confront the racial crisis, it has opened up

a leadership vacuum in the black community.

Do you simply not buy that?

I disagree.

I have a lot of respect for Dr Dyson and he's written respectfully

of my work.

I just disagree.

I think that as one who has dealt with the last two or three

presidents, I've seen him operate more immediately, more on hands

and more effectively than any of the last two or three presidents,

including the Democrats.

But when he says...

Leading the fight, how can he lead the fight to himself?

The fight must be brought to him, which many of us are doing.

Sometimes we misconstrue him being president with him

being the leader of black America.

That's the nub of it, isn't it, because he has said many a time

after these incidents we've seen, from Ferguson, to Florida,

to wherever they happen, obviously in Baton Rouge

and elsewhere, he says time and again, I am not the president

of black America, but many black people and particularly angry young

disaffected black people, are saying to themselves,

what's the point of this historic moment, electing a black president,

if he won't act in the interests of black America?

Well, but what is the point if he is operating in the interest

and is putting historic numbers of people out of jail

that was incarcerated, is saying let's move forward

on these policing issues, his Justice Department just found

in Ferguson and Baltimore for the first time coming down

on those cities saying there is a systemic police race problem.

You can always run out on the streets of England and say,

oh they're not doing anything, but I think to a lot of people that

are involved in these matters, involved in the cases,

and the victims themselves, have said no, this president clearly

is not leading the fight, but has responded better than any

president we've seen.

Is it easy to get extreme voices?

Of course it is.

I remember I came to London years ago and led marches

and they interviewed one guy in the back of the line saying

we ought to burn the town down.

There was no conflict in leadership.

It was a choice by the media to decide they wanted to raise

different extreme voices.

They have the right to be heard but don't act

like there's a conflict.

There a disagreement in tactics.

Some say Mr Sharpton, some in the black community say

Al Sharpton used to be the firebrand, he used to be the guy

that would tell it like it was, but in to Obama in particular

he spent far too much time cosying up to the guy.

I believe you've spent what, 60 or so visits to the White House

talking to Obama, talking to his advisers, right

inside the system rather than piling in on the side of those

who desperately want change?

Well, I think you need to watch your interview

because you just said the families called me,

and asked me to come in.

So obviously they don't see me as one that would not change that.

You put people who want to get some spotlight in like they are speaking

for the movement and the victims.

The victims, as you said, call us in.

These guys that want to get space criticising and they not only did it

to me, they've done it to those far greater before me,

are speaking for who?

First of all...

But putting some political analysis on this...

Please let me finish.

First of all who are they speaking on behalf to and on what end?

I've met with the last three or four presidents and every major civil

rights leader meets with presidents and people to get things done.

This whole ghettoisation of black leadership,

to say we're not smart enough to lead in the streets and to go

into suites to negotiate what we are leading in the streets

about, is absolutely insulting.

Of course the people leading the marches and leading

in the streets like me want to be at the table to say

that the legislation must be right on policing, that we must

deal with the problem.

What the intellectual that you're quoting wants is they want us to be

assigned to the streets so they can go in and negotiate,

because they're never coming to the streets.

They want to talk for us, like we're not intelligent enough

to speak for ourselves.

It's not for me to second-guess anybody's motives, it's for me to me

to try to figure out what it means politically.

There's a guy called Jamal Watson, who I believe is writing a book

about you, I think, he certainly spent a lot of time

studying your career, and he says, I think Al Sharpton is right now

helping to legitimise Obama and protect him against critics

who claim that he's not black enough.

I know you disagree with that, but can you see where that sort

of opinion is coming from in today's America,

given what is happening?

Well first of all I supported President Obama, both when he ran

the first time and his re-election, so the president, there is no

secret about that.

And I disagreed with those that felt his role should be different.

But that doesn't mean that has anything to do with how we deal

with and challenge him, both me and the Black Lives Matter

representatives that are meeting with him, and the NAACP and others.

You can't have it both ways.

You can't say that if Sharpton or the NAACP meets with Obama

they are giving support to the system but if they bring

in young activists in the same meeting from Black Lives Matter,

they're not being swallowed up.

I mean, come on, you can't have it both ways.

Either we ought to be meeting with the president or we ought not

be meeting with the president.

All of us ought to be meeting with the president.

I think a lot of this is a lot of guys just trying to get

some face time.

Well, you've had plenty of face time of your own,

Mr Sharpton!

Let's get away from this idea of...

Again, I didn't break into the studio, you invited me

in and we're having face time now.

That's a very fair point, we wanted you on this show and I'm

delighted we've got you on the show but let's get to a different point.

We've talked about the intellectual discussion within the black

community, but let's talk about the intergenerational discussion.

Here's a really interesting outright simple idea that was put forward

by a musician called Tef Poe, who was very involved

in the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, after the killing

of Michael Brown, and he just said this.

He said at one point when people interviewed him on the streets

at a demo, he said, you know what, this ain't your grandparents' civil

rights movement and there was a thought behind that

that there is some generational shift going on.

Would you accept that?

You've been around for a long time.

Well, I mean I talk to a lot of them.

In fact I have young people in my organisation,

I have the youth director nationally who is 18 years old.

Again, I think that you'd have to distinguish when they say that,

what part of the grandparents' civil rights movement

they're talking about?

You had the black power movement who believed in self defence,

you had the Black Panthers movement that believed in self defence,

you have Martin Luther King that believed in nonviolence,

you had the NAACP that fought in legal rights so again we're not

talking about a monolith and I think a lot of the media doesn't drill

down and say exactly what you talk about.

Our grandparents' movement, in my case it would be my parents,

I'm old enough to be the rapper you talk about's father,

so he might be talking about my fathers, their generation

had as many differences as this generation does now,

all the younger generation.

Like I said, my 18-year-old youth director Mary Pat Hector,

who runs the youth movement out of the national network,

she disagrees with a lot of the rappers.

So who speaks for young black America?

Who speaks for older black America?

Who speaks for elderly black America?

The same that always did.

It's been different voices that speak at the same time,

as they do in Europe, as they do around the world.

As they did in the movement in South Africa.

There is nothing new about that.

Some in the media try to say we're going to choose this

or that and it's really funny, it's comical.

I just wonder whether you fear that some of the voices,

let's call them the more radical street protests,

direct action voices, do you worry that they are fostering

an atmosphere that could produce a lot more violence?

I'm against violence.

I certainly have said that all my life.

I think that in many cases we have seen that down through the years

and I have always denounced it no matter what is the generation.

When I was called into Ferguson by the family and we started

the first marches, it wasn't just young folks that were out

there angry, there were people my age and older that were angry.

I think we cannot make violence just generational and I think we can't

condone it under any measure.

I think there are a lot of young people out there saying we're not

going to have violence.

When you look at the movement on college campuses last year

for example, the University of Missouri and others,

that fought against the racial symbolism of having slave masters'

names and other things, they were totally non-violent

and these young people were younger than the activists that you're

talking about in Ferguson.

On college campuses.

They were not part of that movement and they spread all over the country

on college campuses, so it's not generational, it's tactical.

Let's talk politics.

If we're going to talk tactics it's important to talk

about national politics.

Right now you're obviously in campaign season for

the November presidential election.

The Black Lives Matter movement which we've talked about quite a bit

in this interview has made it very plain it is not interested

in playing a role in mainstream politics.

That is not what they do and they're not going to endorse either Clinton

or Trump before November.

Do you think that's wise, or not?

Well first of all you have to talk about what part of that movement,

because that movement has been as they say organic and leaderless

because one of the prominent voices in that movement ran for mayor

of Baltimore - which is exactly engaged in electoral politics.

So let's not act like it's one organisation with one leadership

thrust like other models that they don't agree with,

like the NAACP.

I was speaking of Alicia Garza, one of the founders of the movement

and she said the endorsement goes to the protest movement itself

that we have built.

Other voices that have identified that movement are running

for office, one just ran for the mayor of Baltimore.

Cut to the chase.

Is it wise to stay out of this and say you know what,

we don't believe in any of these politicians and we're not

going to endorse either Trump or Clinton?

Well I think that what you'd have to question is then how do

we get our goals in terms of new legislation, which all others

agree that we need to deal with independent prosecutors

and deal with demilitarisation of police and other matters that

all others agree on, how do we do that without putting

people in office, that the only way you're going to get new legislation

is to have new legislators.

But at the same time I don't think you dismiss Alicia Garza's

frustration or others' frustration saying that I've not seen

these people deliver, and I think that those of us that do

believe in using the political process have to raise to these

people that you are causing this frustration, but at the same time

one of the prominent things that happened in Mrs Hillary Clinton's

campaign is she was able to get the victims' mothers

to come out and campaign, the mother of Eric Garner,

the mother of Michael Brown, the mother of Trayvon Martin.

They are the ones that went out and campaigned for her, not even me,

and said vote for Hillary Clinton because they feel the way to get

justice for their family, their blood, was doing this.

So I think there's respectful disagreement.

Are you endorsing Clinton or not?

I've not made any endorsement.

I'm not to Miss Garza's point of saying don't vote,

I will certainly probably make an endorsement before the election,

but at this point I'm concentrating more on trying to reverse

the new attempts to suppress the vote with voting laws,

and I didn't want to do that as a surrogate for a campaign.

I just wondered if you haven't endorsed anyone because looking

at your record, you've got a record of actually being pretty close

to Donald Trump as well as Hillary Clinton.

You've certainly met Clinton many times and she's expressed support

for your movement, but Donald Trump tweeted a while ago a picture

of you and him saying, Al Sharpton loves Trump

because he knows I get him, that others don't, and also you've

had plenty of meetings with Trump.

You said you don't dislike the guy even though you don't

like many of his positions?

I have met with Donald Trump down through the years when Donald Trump

was a Democrat and played like he was a liberal

and was booking James Brown, who was like a father to me,

in his showrooms, but I have absolutely denounced Donald Trump's

racist comments and I've met 100 times more with Hillary Clinton,

who I supported for US Senator, I supported her husband

and her when she was in the White House and Hillary Clinton

just spoke at the convention in April, so there's no sane person

that thinks that Donald Trump and I are close friends.

Donald Trump and I knew each other down through the years.

He's a big New York businessman who was a Democrat, who used

to do things.

I've also marched on Donald Trump, because Donald Trump was the main

adversary we dealt with in the Central Park five case and I led

the marches on his office about that.

I'm a little bit confused.

Having used the word racist about Donald Trump's positions,

you're still saying to me you're not right now endorsing a candidate.

How can you believe one of the two candidates is racist and yet

not endorse the other?

You weren't listening.

I just say that I choose not to have a partisan view to confuse

people on why I'm voting against voter suppression and that

I will be probably endorsing, but I want to first finish what I'm

doing around voter suppression, I said that to you

a few minutes ago.

So maybe because I take my role as a civil rights activist more

important than a party person is why I would say

I would do my endorsement after we deal with these legal

rights around voter suppression.

We don't know how close the race is going to be.

Some polls suggest right now it's not going to be that close,

but received wisdom suggests the polls can tighten very quickly.

In key states like Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania,

the black vote could well be hugely important.

You're talking about voter registration and turning

out the vote.

Do you believe that in this election America's black communities

are going to vote in greater numbers than usual?

The question is can they vote, which is why we're concentrating

on voter suppression, that they've changed voting

regulations in 17 states, three of which have now been turned

around by the court, but you have 14 states that

have new laws.

Many of them are the states you are referring to,

so the question before you get to will there be a big turnout

is if there is a big turnout will they be allowed to vote

if they don't have the new regulated ID, which is why I opt to deal

with that before I opt to deal with telling people to come out

and vote for a candidate, that they may not be qualified

to vote at all if we don't turn a lot of this around.

You know what, when we talk about this, you talk about voter

suppression which you see as clearly discriminatory,

we talk about the criminal justice and law enforcement systems,

which you see as clearly discriminatory.

Do you believe today Mr Sharpton, after what, pretty much five decades

in the civil rights business, that America is any less racist

today than it was when you set out?

I don't believe that America is in a post-racial era.

I think we've seen improvement.

When I started as a kid, when I was 12 years

old in the aftermath of Dr King's organisation,

we were in the back of the bus literally in parts of the South,

though I'm from the North, literally within three or four years

had the right of vote, clearly we've made some progress,

but I don't think we've gone anywhere near a fair and equal

society and I don't think racist attitudes have changed.

But I'm not looking for people to love me.

I'm looking for people not to be able to in any way abuse me

without equal protection under the law and in any way

limit my opportunities.

I think that that we still have a challenge, but to say

we haven't made progress, I think is not true.

To say we made a lot of progress and we are there now

in a post-racial generation, I think is absurd.

And I remember when I saw President Obama are elected,

who I supported, people said we're not going to need the Al Sharptons

anymore and the civil rights campaigners, and it seems

like they had to take that back and that's why families still call

us, because we still haven't solved a lot of the problems,

but the fact that we have dealt with some of them is what gives me

the faith and the strength to keep going fighting.

We have to end there.

Al Sharpton, thank you very much for being on Hardtalk.

Thank you.

Hello there.

Plenty to smile about with the weather story over

the next few days.

I'm sure farmers will be happy, this Weather Watcher's picture

showing gathering in the harvest on Sunday.