(Bloomberg) -- Having been on the front lines of the civil rights movement for much of the past half century, the Reverend Al Sharpton has witnessed first hand some of the deepest fissures in American society.
But he says the past few years have seen those divisions take a sudden -- and probably lasting -- turn for the worse.
“The election of Joe Biden and the four years of Donald Trump has divided the United States more than I've seen within my lifetime,” Sharpton, 67, said in an interview for Bloomberg Quicktake's “Emma Barnett Meets” to be aired Feb. 3. “I don't know that we are going to be able to get to this dialogue of healing for a minute.”
Sharpton, who gave the eulogy at the funeral of George Floyd, the Black man murdered in Minneapolis by a White police officer in May 2020, pointed to efforts by Republicans to implement tougher voting restrictions as a key battlegound -- amid warnings that such measures could disproportionately impact people of color.
“We are in for a long season of confronting voting rights and different sides, of opposing different sides on these questions,” he said.
In the interview recorded Jan. 20, Sharpton, the founder of the National Action Network, discusses the state of American policing, the January 2021 assault on the Capitol, religion in politics, and the inspiration behind his latest book “Righteous Troublemakers.”
The following are excerpts from the interview.
America's Divisions
“I agree with those that say January 6th was the beginning of something. They are not going anywhere. They have gone into states now changing voting laws, or they have built an infrastructure around this big lie that Trump really won and that they want to in some way control how votes are counted and how votes are done.”
“I think we are in for a long season of confronting voting rights and different sides, of opposing different sides on these questions. And I don't know that we are going to be able to get to this dialogue of healing for a minute. Now, I think this is going to play itself out. I think the election of Joe Biden and the four years of Donald Trump has divided the United States more than I've seen within my lifetime.”
The Capitol Assault
“They were there that day, January 6th, to stop the certification of an election that the American people had chosen the president. So you can't.. have an insurrection and go against the certification of the will of American people.. harming people, damaging property, running around the halls of the Capitol of the United States, asking for the Speaker of the House. You want to kill her? You want to kill even the vice president of your own party? There's nothing righteous about that.”
American Policing
“I think that we need to reform the police, but we need to keep a measure (of) policing in our communities. Because we have high crimes.”
“You've got as much a problem with gun violence as you have a problem of dealing with police that are over the line and do things that are wrong and.. in many cases are criminal.”
“So I think that it is restructuring -- how you put the funds and how you fund policing. So we need both, we need good policing funded properly that deals with things like mental health and gun control.”
Religion in Politics
“It has definitely been weaponized in a way that's unhealthy, because I think that we've used faith as a way of making people other than us or that.. wicked, and therefore, if you can make them wicked and make them some kind of anti what God would want, that it justifies treating them unequally and treating them unfairly.”
“Which is why I think people of faith have to say: I'm motivated by my faith, but I want to protect people's rights that may not even have a faith.”
On ‘Righteous Troublemakers'
“I'm trying to give voice to people that I feel made tremendous contributions, but never got the recognition and the visibility that I think they merited.”
“I wanted people to understand that so that everyday people would know that you don't have to qualify to be a troublemaker or freedom fighter. Everybody has a contribution, and these people were just regular people that did some things that were amazing.”
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