WWRL -- Sharpton rally -- 9/9/95

Reverend Al Sharpton:

"Now, many of us are involved in various levels of struggle. One of the things that our Buy Black Campaign, and Brother Morris Powell and I are engaged in, is there is a systemic and methodical strategy to eliminate our people from doing business off 125th Street. It started with the vendors, now they're going to the actual merchants. One of our brothers who has for years been a backbone in our community, who has not only been an entrepreneur, but has also been a activist and involved in the struggle, is now being threatened with not having his lease renewed.

Brother Sikhulu -- stand up, brother -- on 125th Street. I want to make it clear to the radio audience -- and do you hear -- that we will not stand by and allow them to move this brother, so that some white interloper can expand his business on 125th Street. And we're asking the Buy Black Committee to go down there, and I'm gonna go down there, and do what is necessary to let them know that we are not turnin' 125th Street back over to outsiders as it was done in the early part of this century.

People all over the world, people all over the world, respond to Harlem and the main strip of 125th Street. And to fail now -- Dr. Feller just come back from Africa -- imagine if it was out all over the diaspora, how they're pushing us around in the capital of the diaspora in Harlem on our Main Street.

This is a sin and a shame and a disgrace, and we should not under any circumstances sit by and allow this to happen without a major reaction and major protest from us. So I want us to be clear on that, and I want us to be on the case with that. It is clear that there is the intention of the Giuliani administration to change the color of New York.

You remember when they first got in, John Dyson, the Deputy Mayor, said that it is all right, white boys have run for New York for X amount of years. It is clearly their intention on trying to retake anything they can and to eradicate and eliminate any semblance of Black power or Black stronghold in the city. And if we sit by and allow it to happen, we can't blame no one but us. So we support this brother."

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