Civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton did not allow New York City’s embattled government leadership to deter him from celebrating at the 2024 National Action Network (NAN) Triumph Awards.
The NAN ceremony honored “cultural icons” Gladys Knight, Robert De Niro, Jazz at Lincoln Center director Wynton Marsalis, and philanthropist Carolyn “Cookie” Mason for using their “platform to drive social change.”
The Sept. 30 event also served as a 70th birthday celebration for Sharpton. It was attended by the state’s governor, Kathy Hochul, and other political figures. His original birth date is Oct. 3.
The reverend and attendees have shared numerous moments from the night, including a clip that is well on its way to being a viral hit.
In the video, Sharpton is seen onstage with the night’s honorees as Stevie Wonder’s version of “Happy Birthday” plays, and a montage of photos of Sharpton throughout the years is shown on a screen behind him. Social media users had a field day commenting on the NAN founder’s dance moves.
“I know George Jefferson when I see ‘em’,” said one person. Sharpton was also compared to Jerome, the dancing gangsta-pimp-singer from the “Martin” show. Another person called the radio host a “Jive Turkey.”
While one user said, “I’m not mad… as old as he is it’s a blessing to be able to move like that.
Comments took a more comical detour when people began to make observations about his appearance.
Over the past 20 years, Sharpton has undergone quite the physical transformation, making his days of weighing 305 pounds a distant memory for those who were around to witness it in the late 1980s and 1990s.
“Uncle Al you betta bobble that head,” said one person. Since dropping down to 129 pounds, Sharpton has often been jokingly described as looking like a bobblehead due to his head-to-body ratio. Someone who commented in his defense referenced the weight loss when they wrote, “Yall gotta remember he used to be overweight with a Jheri curl. Uncle Al Been Had It!”
However, a number of commenters were not humored by the post; instead, they were outraged by the company Sharpton was celebrating with. “Buck Dancing with the b-word who dissed black kids,” read a scathing reaction, referring to the governor.
Gov Kathy Hochul:
— HOT SPOT (@HotSpotHotSpot) May 7, 2024
Black people in the Bronx “don’t know what a computer is” pic.twitter.com/NNTZHJLcJ5
In May, Hochul came under fire for declaring, “Right now we have, you know, young Black kids growing up in the Bronx who don’t even know what the word computer is.” Her remarks were delivered at the Milken Institute Global Conference in California.
At the start of 2024, Hochol announced a $400 million AI Empire, a consortium whose computing center will be located in upstate New York. She continued, “They don’t know, they don’t know these things.”
The elected official issued an apology as her message drew backlash.
Sharpton came to her defense, saying, in part, that “a lot of our community is robbed of using social media because we are racially excluded from access,” and that remarks were not made in malice.
One more person said, “It ain’t officially election season until you see Al Sharpton shucking and jiving.”
Elsewhere in the comments, Sharpton was called a “rat.” For years he was accused of being an FBI informant, but it was not until 2014 that the reverend admitted that he sought protection from the FBI amid concerns for his safety from “music industry goons.” He said that his assistance aided agents in targeting Italian mob figures.
