New York City's Medgar Evers College proposed resolution to bestow an honorary doctorate degree on Rev. Al Sharpton is facing opposition over the activist's inflaming race tensions in the Crown Heights neighborhood during 1991 riots, according to the N.Y. Post.
"This is not a person you honor," Norman Rosenbaum, the brother of a man who was stabbed to death by an angry mob shouting "Kill the Jew," told the Post. "Within the last 27 years he hasn't changed. The same character is there."
Rev. Sharpton, 64, would be honored as a man of "unwavering commitment to racial, educational and socioeconomic equity" at the June 5 commencement of the taxpayer-funded state college, but there is controversy over his stoking the racial flames over the accidental death of a black, 7-year-old Gavin Cato, according to the report.
"I think he's a fraud and a charlatan whose actions over the years speak for themselves and they're not good actions,” Rosenbaum added to the Post. "He's a man who does not promote peace. He's not told the truth."
Rev. Sharpton also came to the defense of a teenager in 1987 who claimed to have been abducted and raped by a group of white men, a story that was later exposed as a hoax but Rev. Sharpton has not apologized for defending, according to the report.
"I can't believe the guy's being recognized for anything . . . worried about his own political agenda and that's it," Steven Pagones, an ex-prosecutor who won a defamation suit against Rev. Sharpton, told the Post.
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