I was nearing the end of the catalog for the sale of African American manuscripts when I turned the page and read the entry:
“(RELIGION.) SHARPTON, REV. AL.”
I immediately looked at the black and white photos and saw images of an African American boy prominently shown in a robe, one photo of him speaking into a microphone that he had leaned close to his mouth. It was our own Rev. Al Sharpton preaching at a revival meeting when he was 12 years old, according to the catalog for Swann Auction Galleries in New York. The framed photos were inscribed with greetings to the owner and signed by Sharpton.
I never knew that Sharpton was a child minister, assuming that he was ordained as a young man. But I learned that he had been preaching long before these photos were taken around 1966. The man that people both love and hate, who sees it as his mission to speak out against injustices wrought upon those less-fortunate, had found his calling when he was 4 years old.
He told the story of his calling in 2013 during an “Oprah’s Next Chapter” interview and in his book “The Rejected Stone: Al Sharpton and the Path to American Leadership.” He preached to his sister’s dolls in the family’s basement in Queens, he told Oprah. He wore his mother’s bathrobe and used a candle as a microphone, he mentioned in another book.
“That was the best congregation I ever had,” he told Oprah. “Not much of an offering but they never complained.”
He was born Alfred Charles Sharpton Jr. on Oct. 4, 1954, in Brooklyn, NY. When he was young, his father Alfred Sr., who invested heavily in real estate, moved the family to Hollis, Queens, where they lived in a 10-room house and the couple both had nice cars. That ended in 1964 when his father left the family with his teenage step-daughter who was pregnant by him. Sharpton, his mother Ada and sister Cheryl had to move onto welfare and into public housing.
His father wasn’t much of a church-goer; it was his mother who encouraged him. She took him with her to Washington Temple Church of God in Christ, a Pentecostal church founded by Bishop Frederick Douglas “F.D.” Washington and his wife Ernestine. That’s where Sharpton first started preaching, he told Oprah, volunteering to do so when the female head of the junior usher board asked the members what they’d like to do on their anniversary program.
“Preach,” Sharpton replied, and the pastor allowed him to do so. Standing on a box at the pulpit, Sharpton ministered before a congregation of 900 people, taking his message from St. John 14:1. Bishop Washington ordained him when he was 10 years old. He began preaching at various churches in the area, and became known as the boy preacher. A 1966 poster for an upcoming appearance at a Brooklyn church described him as “God’s 11 Year Old Wonder Preacher.”
Being a preacher at such a young age didn’t make him many friends, he said in an excerpt from his book in the New York Daily News. Kids his age thought he was odd, and either avoided him or laughed at him. It didn’t help, he said, that he wrote his name as Rev. Alfred Sharpton on his school papers when he was in the third or fourth grade.
Those same kids gave him some respect after he started touring with the famous Mahalia Jackson. Sharpton said the church – a mega-church by today’s standard – was a stop for many of the era’s great gospel singers, and Jackson was among those who sang there. Being a celebrity at the church, he got a chance to meet her. Around age of 9, he toured with her in a few cities, opening her performances with his sermons. The highlight was his preaching at a gospel-night celebration featuring Jackson at the New York City pavilion of the 1964 New York World’s Fair.
Bishop Washington was apparently grooming Sharpton to take over his church. In 1994, though, Sharpton became a Baptist minister, his re-baptism taking place at another New York church whose pastor had been a mentor for 20 years. By then, Sharpton was not preaching, but was engaged in civil rights and other political activities.
At auction, before the photos came up for bids, I wondered if Sharpton was aware that they were being sold and if he’d bid on them. They were estimated at $500 to $750. When they were finally offered, there were no takers. The 8×10 silver print photos did not sell.
