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The relationship I had with James Brown turned out to be one of the most meaningful associations I’ve had in my life, the one that shaped a lot of what I eventually became.

In 1973, when I was eighteen, James heard about my National Youth Movement and decided he wanted to help me raise money by doing a benefit concert. James seemed to really like me and took me under his wing. He started inviting me to his shows to help out, eventually bringing me all around the world with him and even appointing me his manager because he knew he could trust me. Our relationship became like father and son. In fact, James’s father, Joe Brown, once said I brought out the best in James because he wanted to live up to my admiration of him.
Those years with James were a heady, glorious time for me. I learned a great deal about human nature, about business, about the black community, about the music industry, and I met huge stars in just about every field imaginable.
In fact, James was the one who told me to shorten my name to “Al.” Up to that point, I was known as Alfred Sharpton. “Reverend,” he said to me one day (he always called me Reverend). “Cut it to Al. You don’t need four bars (as in Al-fred Sharp-ton). Just Al Sharpton. Alfred’s too much.”

3 Inspirational Quotes From Rev. Al Sharpton’s ‘The Rejected Stone’  was originally published on elev8.com

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