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| Rev. Al Sharpton and Tawana Brawley |
The Worst of Al Sharpton
By William Saletan, Ben Jacobs and Avi Zenilman, Sep. 8, 2003
Slate continues its short features on the 2004 presidential
candidates. Previous series covered
the candidates' biographies, buzzwords, agendas, worldviews, and claims to
fame. This series assesses the story that supposedly shows each candidate at
his worst. Here's the one told by critics of Al Sharpton—and what they leave
out.
Charge: In 1987, a 15-year-old black girl named Tawana
Brawley went missing and was found four days later covered in dog feces and
with racial slurs written on her body. She claimed that at least two and
possibly six white men, one of them carrying a badge, had repeatedly raped her
in the woods in upstate New York. Sharpton took up Brawley's cause and defended
her refusal to cooperate with prosecutors, saying that asking her to meet with
New York's attorney general (who had been asked by Gov. Mario Cuomo to supervise
the investigation) would be like "asking someone who watched someone
killed in the gas chamber to sit down with Mr. Hitler." According to the
Associated Press, Sharpton and Brawley's lawyers asserted "on 33 separate
occasions" that a local prosecutor named Steven Pagones "had
kidnapped, abused and raped" Brawley. There was no evidence, and Pagones
was soon cleared. Sharpton then accused a local police cult with ties to the
Irish Republican Army of perpetrating the alleged assault. The case fizzled
when a security guard for Brawley's lawyers testified that the lawyers and
Sharpton knew Brawley was lying.
Read the full story: www.slate.com
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