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REV. AL SHARPTON TO LEAD DELEGATION OF PROMINENT CLERGY ON AN ECUMENICAL FACT-FINDING MISSION TO LIBYA IN THE WAKE OF REPORTS THAT REFUGEES ARE BEING BOUGHT, SOLD, & MURDERED AT MIGRANT SLAVE AUCTIONS
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REV. AL SHARPTON TO LEAD DELEGATION OF PROMINENT CLERGY ON AN ECUMENICAL FACT-FINDING MISSION TO LIBYA IN THE WAKE OF REPORTS THAT REFUGEES ARE BEING BOUGHT, SOLD, & MURDERED AT MIGRANT SLAVE AUCTIONS
New York, NY (Friday, December 1, 2017) – Rev. Al Sharpton, President and founder of National Action Network (NAN), has announced on his radio show, “Keepin’ It Real with Reverend Al Sharpton,” that he intends to lead a fact-finding mission to Libya before Christmas with prominent clergy in the wake of reports that hundreds of African immigrants are being auctioned off as slaves each week. According to Rev. Al Sharpton, it is “morally reprehensible” that the world has ignored the existence of slavery, and during a similar fact finding tour to fight slavery in Sudan in 2001, Rev. Sharpton publicly stated that, “Slavery is wrong no matter who the slave master or the slave is. It’s not about Muslims vs. Christians. It’s about right versus wrong.”
The news has brought back horrific memories of one of the darkest chapters in human history — when millions of Africans were enslaved and auctioned to the highest bidder across the globe.
The link to the full audio clip with the announcement is attached:
BACKGROUND:
Rev. Al Sharpton was a member of Operation Breadbasket in New York at age 12 and appointed Youth Director by Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. William Augustus Jones, the Brooklyn chapter leader. He has been a prominent leader in the civil rights movement ever since.
“Many of us are living examples of Rev. Jackson’s ministry and tutelage. At this hour of his medical challenges, we must be there to raise his arms, just as he raised several generations of arms to continue the struggle that Dr. King assigned him to do,” Rev. Sharpton said, referring to Rev. Jackson’s recent announcement that he is battling Parkinson’s disease.
In 1966, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. appointed Rev. Jackson to head Operation Breadbasket, the economic development arm of the civil rights movement. Through negotiations and boycotts, Breadbasket brought hundreds of jobs and tens of millions of dollars in new wages to struggling and largely African American neighborhoods on South and West sides of Chicago and to other cities around the country.
“In this era of Trump, it is more critical than ever to focus on the path toward empowerment and equal rights that we learned at the feet of Dr. King, Jesse Louis Jackson, and our civil right leaders,” Rev. Sharpton said.
