If you haven’t yet registered to vote or are thinking you might not get out and vote in November, the Rev. Al Sharpton has a few words of warning for you: “We’ll never have this opportunity again.” Sharpton, head of the Harlem-based National Action Network, has been fairly low-key during this political season, but as Election Day nears, he has ramped up his call for everyone wanting change to kick it back into gear. Get more of Sharpton’s words at BET.com/News. Click this link if you haven’t registered to vote.

Lincoln’s team hadn’t competed in almost 50 years. After a hiatus of nearly five decades, Lincoln University has athletes wearing helmets and jerseys again. The historically Black college that produced graduates such as Langston Hughes and Thurgood Marshall has a football team for the first time since 1960. Lincoln also boasts its first marching band, assembled to help rally spirit and support for the football squad. Known as the Lincoln Lions, the team will represent a legacy that includes 15,000 graduates and a 154-year history.

Massachusetts’ only Black senator loses her seat. Massachusetts only has one Black state senator … well, “had” one Black state senator. On Tuesday, in a shocking upset, Sen. Dianne Wilkerson lost her seat to challenger Sonia Chang-Diaz, by 1 percent of the vote, after 15 years in office. That translates into a measly 228 votes. “The margin is so thin. I could be coming to you and saying legitimately that we are not done and we are going to fight. Whatever happens tomorrow does happen,” she told supporters. Well it has happened. The Boston Herald reports that officials with Wilkerson’s camp said they had no intention of fighting the results. With so much at stake and with the outcome so tight, Wilkerson has no one to blame but herself for the loss. Wilkerson drew negative media after admitting mismanaging campaign funds, and she lost ground after failing to get enough signatures for the ballot and was forced to run a write-in campaign. The loss was even more pronounced because Wilkerson had the endorsements of such high-profile supporters as African-American Gov. Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino.  “My fear is that people will think this district is for sale,” Wilkerson said, claiming she was outspent. “There has been so much money spent in this process. It has been unprecedented for us.”
 

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?

He rejected a plea deal, opting to stand trial in September
The Rev. Al Sharpton decided Monday that he’d rather stand trial than plead guilty on charges of disorderly conduct for his role in synchronized protests over the police shooting of Sean Bell that crippled New York City in May. Sharpton was offered a chance to plead guilty for the 5 ½ hours he served at the NYPD precinct. He is responsible for orchestrating a protest that log-jammed several New York bridges and tunnels at the peak of rush hour to make a statement about what many saw as an unfair acquittal of three police officers who shot to death the unarmed Bell on the eve of his wedding day. Bell, 23, died, and two friends, Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman, were seriously wounded in a hail of 50 bullets. The protest was the first of many pledged by the Harlem civil rights leader until the city promised to address longstanding issues of police misconduct and racial injustice. By rejecting the plea deal, Sharpton opted for a Sept. 10 trial date. Sharpton said going to trial is “a matter of law, not just a matter of principle.”

The civil rights leader says he’s “grateful to God” that it’s over

The feds are finally giving the Rev. Al some slack. Last year, federal prosecutors announced that they had issued subpoenas to at least 10 of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s associates, demanding all records related to the civil rights leader’s personal finances, business dealings and transactions associated with his organization, the National Action Network. Sharpton has admitted being behind on his taxes, and, between the IRS, the state of New York and the city, he owes somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 million. He has also failed to file taxes for several consecutive years or to obtain workers’ compensation insurance for employees with the network. “We learn from every experience to be more cautious, more accountable,” Sharpton told The Associated Press. While the Harlem-based minister does not collect a salary from the National Action Network, he earns “several hundreds thousand dollars a year in personal income from his nationally syndicated radio show, book royalties and speaking fees,” according to AP. “I’m just grateful to God and my family, and all of our supporters” that the feds have dropped the criminal case, he said.

The civil rights leader faced a judge over his disorderly-conduct arrest for Bell protest

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who faced a judge Tuesday on charges of disorderly conduct for his massive May protest in New York City, says that he’s no “jail freak.” He and several other activists were arrested following his actions to stymie traffic in protest of the acquittal of the three NYPD officers who shot to death Sean Bell on the eve of his wedding day. He pleaded not guilty and later announced that another huge protest originally planned to take place during the All-Star Baseball game in the Bronx had been called off – largely, he said, because he has been assured that reforms will be passed to prevent similar occurrences among state and national police. “We are not jail freaks. We don’t love handcuffs,” Sharpton said after his hearing in Manhattan Criminal Court, N.Y. Newsday reports. “We are trying to move toward some kind of permanent change.” The activist minister, who heads the Harlem-based National Action Network, will be back in court July 28 on the charges; he will be joined by dozens of others who participated in the protest. If the defendants are on their best behavior over the next six months, the charges would be dismissed, said Judge Melissa Jackson. Sharpton and his followers were arrested following synchronized, simultaneous marches that blocked six of New York’s busiest bridges during rush hour. Among those arrested were Bell’s 23-year-old fiancée, Nicole Paultre Bell, and her mother. “I felt that I needed to do what I needed to, to get justice,” Paultre Bell told Newsday. How important are protests like the one Sharpton led?

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.