He’s preparing to defend his Sean Bell acquittal protest

The Rev. Al Sharpton will take his public nuisance and disturbing the peace case to court Oct. 6, a Manhattan judge ruled Thursday. Sharpton, who was arrested in early May – along with scores of protestors who froze up major New York City thoroughfares as a statement against the acquittal of three police officers in the shooting death of Sean Bell – had an opportunity recently to admit guilt and avoid a trial and jail time. But the civil rights leader, who heads the Harlem-based National Action Network, wanted a public airing for a case that focuses attention back on what he and others say is the egregiously unfair freeing of the NYPD cops who shot down the 23-year-old Bell outside a Queens nightclub on the eve of his wedding day, Nov. 25, 2006. The officers shot the unarmed groom and his two friends in a haze of 50 bullets. Bell’s friends, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, survived but were seriously wounded. On Wednesday, Sharpton said there is nothing unlawful about a peaceful protest. “Every time they bring me back, it further exposes the disparity of justice in this city,” he said.

He calls the public school system a throwback to Jim Crow days.

Because Chicago Public Schools have done far too little to distance themselves from the separate-and-unequal school system of the Jim Crow Era, parents should keep their children away from classrooms when school convenes on Sept. 2, says the Rev. Al Sharpton, who has joined the growing boycott. “Whether it be funding and whether it be graduation rates, we are still separated and unequal,” Sharpton said, speaking to the congregation at the New Landmark Missionary Baptist Church on Sunday morning. “Well maybe if it wasn’t unfair, they [ministers] wouldn’t be talking about a boycott.” Illinois Gov. Todd Blagojevich says he’s working with lawmakers to bring about educational equity, The Chicago Sun Times reports. “I have called the legislators back into special session on Tuesday to focus specifically on school funding,” he told Channel 2 News. “But I think it’s wrong to encourage kids to miss school.”

Rev. Al Sharpton’s daughter apparently doing fine after car accident

The Rev. Al Sharpton’s daughter, Dominique, reportedly is doing fine after she was hit by a car outside of her father’s office building in Harlem. The reverend apparently rushed to her side after learning of the accident, which EURWeb is reporting took place when she was struck while walking with two co-workers outside of National Action Network’s headquarters on West 145th St. “A car pulled into the gas station at full speed and she was pinned to the car,” explained Sharpton’s spokeswoman Rachel Noerdlinger. “Her father rushed home and she is on crutches with several stitches but she is fine and grateful for the outpouring of support from around the country.”

Kindler, gentler Klan? Not!

The Ku Klux Klan in the tiny central-east Texas town of Lufkin will hold a cross-burning this September “to honor Jesus Christ.” Officials of the White supremacist branch, the United White Knights, say that its members are not hatemongers but “God-fearing moral men and women” working “for survival of the White race.” Read more of what they said, and the reaction at BET.com/News.

For somebody with his civil rights track record, he’s allowed a mistake, he says.

Granted, the Rev. Jesse Jackson slipped up when he was recorded whispering some crass comments to a fellow guest on a TV news show, but it’s wrong to treat the civil rights leader as if he’s no longer deserving of respect, the Rev. Al Sharpton said this week. “We have all made mistakes,” Sharpton . We have all erred, and we ought not try to sugar coat when we err,” Sharpton told a gathering of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Kenner, La. “But we should not throw away everything when we err, and to say that Rev. Jackson made a mistake is correct, but to act like Rev. Jesse Jackson is not pivotal to our movement, our history … is wrong … Jesse Jackson is somebody.” Earlier this month, while Jackson was waiting to go on air with the “Fox & Friends” show in Chicago, he was taped leaning over to another African-American guest and saying, “Obama talks down to Black people… I want to cut his nuts off.” It was later disclosed that Jackson had also used the “N”-word; he was not referring to Obama. Jackson has apologized for his comments, even acknowledging they were “regretfully rude.” Sharpton, who runs the Harlem-based National Action Network, also blasted those who see Obama as an alternative to old-school civil rights leaders. “The bias in the media is they try to act like we can’t have multiple strategists,” Sharpton said. “We have never had a one-man movement.” Does Rev. Sharpton have a point about Rev. Jackson?

But so were Martin Luther King, the NAACP, Rev. Jesse Jackson and a host of others.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who’s fighting accusations that he’s been “shaking down” corporate America, isn’t the first civil rights leader to be accused of extorting money from businesses. Read more at BET.com/News.