Al Sharpton may have never held public office, but not for a lack of trying. He has run in the Democratic primaries for a U.S. Senate seat from New York in 1992 and 1994, and in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary in 1997. For a candidate with a controversial past, he did remarkably well. In 1992 he garnered 70 percent of the African-American vote in the state; in 1997 he managed to win 32 percent of the popular vote in New York City and came within a percentage point of forcing a Democratic primary run-off.

In his unsuccessful campaigns, he demonstrated a significant popularity among African-Americans. While his own bids for office were unsuccessful, some prominent Democratic candidates have sought his endorsement, among them Hillary Clinton, Bill Bradley, and Al Gore in the 2000 elections. The considerable constituency Sharpton represents has given him a privileged, if unofficial, status among Democrats. He has arguably surpassed Jesse Jackson as the most prominent spokesman of the African American community.

Sharpton first announced his Presidential aspirations after returning from a fact-finding mission on slavery in the Sudan this spring. In April 2002, he told Time magazine, "I feel that the Democratic Party must be challenged in 2004 because it didn't fight aggressively to protect our voting rights in Florida. I think we need to look at running a black in the primary. I have said I would be available to do it." Since that time he has backed up his intentions by starting a presidential exploratory committee, appearing on Tim Russert's Meet the Press, and announcing that he would resign as president from his National Action Network (NAN), his civil rights organization, early next year.

Born in Brooklyn, NY in 1954 Sharpton has never been abashed by the public eye. At the age of four the precocious Sharpton delivered his first sermon at a local church. By the age of nine "the wonder boy preacher" was ordained and served as a Junior Pastor at the Washington Temple Church in Brooklyn. With this early success as a spiritual leader and prominent standing in the African-American community, Sharpton soon began to participate in the public arena as a civil rights activist.

During his adolescent years, the civil rights movement was sweeping across the United States. Inspired by the examples of such prominent figures as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Sharpton began participating in parades and protests. Jesse Jackson, whom Sharpton once described as his "mentor," appointed him youth director for Operation Breadbasket, an organization that promoted equal opportunity employment. In 1971, Sharpton founded his own National Youth Movement, an organization that mobilized young, urban voters and negotiated job opportunities for blacks.

Throughout the 1980s, Sharpton gained a reputation as a bellicose, flamboyant and controversial civil rights activist. Dressed in his trademark sweat suit and wearing a gold medallion—which he now asserts was actually brass—Sharpton conducted racially charged campaigns across the nation to fight discrimination, especially in the criminal justice system. It was in this capacity that Sharpton achieved national notoriety for his role in the Tawana Brawley scandal.

On November 28, 1987, Brawley, a black high school student from Wappingers Falls, N.Y., was found in a plastic bag, covered in feces and with racial epithets written on her skin. When questioned by police, she said she had been abducted and raped numerous times by a team of white law enforcement officials over a period of four days. The story garnered national attention.

Along with attorneys C. Vernon Mason and Alton H. Maddox, Jr. (who were later disbarred for unethical practices) Sharpton became an adviser to the Brawley family. His role in the Brawley affair also gained him national attention, not all of it favorable. During a grand jury hearing in the case, Sharpton, Maddox, and Mason leveled wild accusations at local law enforcement officials and even accused Steven Pagones, then an assistant district attorney in Dutchess County, N.Y., of being complicit in the alleged assault and rape. At one point in the trial, Sharpton declared that he believed Pagones was "absolutely" involved in the attack.

The grand jury concluded that Brawley's charges were a hoax; Pagones sued Sharpton, Maddox and Mason for defamation, and prevailed in his case against Sharpton in July 1998. In spite of the ruling, Sharpton continues to defend the truth of Brawley's accusations. After the ruling against him he asserted, "I didn't believe it to be a hoax then and I don't believe it to be a hoax now."

The grand jury's finding in the Brawley affair and the subsequent lawsuit against him had little effect on Sharpton's activities. He continued to lead protests against racial discrimination and police brutality. His outspokenness, presence and instinct for controversy made him a favorite of the media and a regular fixture of the camera during his high-profile crusades. In 1991, however, he was forced to reassess his public approach when he was stabbed in the chest by a drunken white man while preparing for a protest in Bensonhurst, N.Y. Sharpton muted his rhetoric and adopted a more conventional image, trading his sweat suits and medal for suits and ties. While he remained an active member of the civil rights movement (he began NAN in 1991- the self-appointed "voice of empowerment for the disenfranchised throughout America"), his aims and ambitions became evidently more political. He ran for the Democratic nominations and tried to expand his support base and experience beyond his traditional African American constituency.

In recent years Sharpton has taken on a wider array of issues. When a U.S. Navy bomb killed Puerto Rican citizen David Sanes in 1999 on the island of Vieques, a critical issue between the Puerto Rican people and the Navy received international attention. For over 60 years the Navy has used much of Vieques as training ground and a stage for war gameswhile the residents ofthe island consistently protested that the Navy's use of the island created a health hazard and fought to stop the training exercises there. After the death of Sanes, Sharpton was one of those who flocked to join the campaign against the Navy.

"I want to bring attention to the fact that children are contracting asthma at alarming rates," Sharpton said of his protests. "The cancer rates have increased. All of this is going on without any sensitivity on the part of the national government." On May 1, 2001, Sharpton was arrested along with 180 other protesters while trying to thwart the training exercises that the military was conducting on the island. He was sentenced 90 days in prison and fined $500 for his involvement. To protest his incarceration, he began a hunger strike and likened his aims and agenda to that of Martin Luther King. He surmised, "If Martin Luther King were alive, he would have come to Vieques and raised these issues."

Sharpton was released after 87 days with three 3 days off for good behavior, leaner, bearded and defiant. "We'll come again, if we have to, to stop the bombing," he said. "We went in this jail struggling and we're going to come out struggling."

Even after his announcement of his "availability" for the Democratic presidential primaries, he has not tried to steer clear from controversy. His most recent tumult arose after he filed a $1 billion lawsuit in January 2002, against HBO for airing 1983 videotape of him being approached about a cocaine deal.

The tape, which aired that month on "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel," showed Sharpton saying "right" and "I hear you" as an undercover agent posing as a drug dealer described potential profits to him. Sharpton reacted by filing the lawsuit, which alleges "defamation, libel, and slander", and declared that he would "not give into a smear campaign." He said that the conversation was about promoting boxing before it turned to drugs and that "HBO had a responsibility to show any and all information that was available. By not doing so, what they did was…criminalize a civil rights activist." An HBO spokesman said that the lawsuit was "unworthy of comment."