Add the Al Sharpton/Twana Brawley Hoax in 1987 to the list of disruptive social actions caused by the left. Today Sharpton is a cable tv host on MSNBC and the Rs say absolutely nothing
In 1995, Sharpton and his National Action Network colleague Morris Powell agitated against Fred Harari, a Jewish shop owner in Harlem. “We are not going to stand idly by and let a Jewish person come in black Harlem and methodically drive black people out of business up and down 125th Street,” Powell said.
Sharpton added: “We will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business on 125th Street.” A few months later, a gunman entered the store and set it ablaze, killing seven and then shooting himself. When the shop reopened, Powell was back at it, warning, “Freddy’s not dead.”
Sharpton, meanwhile, is free of shame or apology. “You only repent when you mean it, and I have done nothing wrong,” he insisted years later. In 2011, he wrote a gobsmacking piece of revisionist history for the New York Daily News, claiming his remarks were being manipulated by “extremist Jews,” though he conceded that some of the marchers’ rhetoric “played to the extremists rather than raising the issue of the value of this young man whom we were so concerned about.” Sharpton then pronounced: “It is not enough to be right. We had our marches, and they were all peaceful.” That is, Sharpton doesn’t think he’s getting enough credit for his behavior.