Photo: The Rev. Al Sharpton speaks at a memorial service for, George Floyd at North Central University Thursday, June 4, 2020, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
The Rev. Al Sharpton responded to President Donald Trump’s remarks about him and the renaming of Fort Bragg in North Carolina during an Inside City Hall interview on Tuesday.
Trump on Sunday mocked the renaming of Fort Bragg during an interview and sarcastically suggested that is be renamed after Sharpton.
“Go to the community where Fort Bragg is, in a great state, I love that state. Go to the community, say, 'How do you like the idea of renaming Fort Bragg' and then what are we going to name it?” Trump said. “We’re going to name it after Rev. Al Sharpton?”
“Well, first of all, I’m flattered that I have free rent in his head,” Sharpton told Errol Louis in response on Tuesday. “But the fact of the matter is, there are many men and women in the military, which is mostly what you name military bases after, that could be named.
“Name a base after Crispus Attucks, a black man who was the first man of any race to die in the American Revolution,” Sharpton continued. “Name it after those that fought in segregated barracks for a country that would not give them their freedom when they got home.”
Speaking on Trump’s praise of Robert E. Lee, Sharpton said that the U.S. is the only nation that honors Americans who tried to overthrow the country.
“There’s no nation in the world that I can find that honors the people that tried to overthrow that country and name those people and honor them by naming military bases after them. It’s unheard of, and it should be an insult to every American,” he said.
Sharpton, who is organizing a march in Washington, D.C., next month, told NY1 that he is also advocating for the renaming of Alabama's Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Speaking on the legacy of late congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis, who was beaten during a protest on the bridge, Sharpton stressed the importance of rebranding it.
“John Lewis was the most humble. Yet, this man started as a student, beaten as a freedom rider, beaten on the Edmund Pettis Bridge and then went into the Congress for 33 years and was the perfect balance of demonstration and legislation,” he said.
“I think that it would be appropriate among other honors to rename the Edmund Pettis Bridge, who is named after a Klansman, that’s who Edmund Pettis was, to rename it the John Lewis Bridge. That’s where he shed blood to get us the right to vote, and that’s why we’re going August 28 to protect that right,” he added.
Sharpton plans on rallying at his "Get Your Knee Off Our Necks" march alongside the National Action Network and other civil rights leaders next month. The march, which will highlight police reform, voting rights and the census, will take place on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.