By Julia Marsh

With help from Ella Creamer, Jesse Naranjo and Teresa Wiltz

PROGRAMMING NOTE: The Recast will not publish Aug. 29 or Sept. 1. We’ll be back in your inboxes Wednesday, Sept. 6.

POLITICO illustration/Photos by Getty Images for National Urban League

Hi Recast fam! My name is Julia Marsh. I’m POLITICO’s New York editor, and I’m your guest host for today. Donald Trump surrenders at a Georgia jail in the election case, the Kremlin denies responsibility for the plane crash that killed mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and Fed Chair Jerome Powell says we’ll continue to battle inflation for the foreseeable future. But today, we’re talking about an unlikely bromance. 

The Rev. Al Sharpton’s return to the center stage of protest politics this Saturday for the 60th Anniversary of the March on Washington evokes his role in one of New York’s most significant civil rights moments.

In 1987, Sharpton, who is one of the leaders for tomorrow’s anniversary march and rally on the National Mall, shut down parts of the New York City subway systems protesting the jury verdict in the infamous Howard Beach race attack.

That was also the moment that Eric Adams, now the city’s mayor and then a transit cop, first remembers crossing Sharpton’s path. Sharpton was literally stopping traffic by walking on the subway tracks.

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“I saw him walk down the tracks in a jumpsuit. I said, ‘What’s this guy doing?’” Adams recalled in an interview about his relationship with Sharpton. “That’s when he got on my radar.”

In a little-known piece of city history, Adams later became Sharpton’s unofficial bodyguard, providing off-duty police protection to the civil rights leader when he ran for the U.S. Senate in 1992. Adams, who’d join the NYPD at the behest of a Brooklyn pastor — to fight its racist practices from within — had overheard a fellow officer joke about killing Sharpton. He loathed the thought that Sharpton could be assassinated under his watch.

Despite that unique shared history, Sharpton did not endorse Adams in the 2021 mayoral race because he was very close to another candidate, Wall Street executive Ray McGuire. However, now that Adams is in office, Sharpton talks to the mayor weekly. Still, the two have privately clashed over policing issues — including the NYPD’s continued use of stop-and-frisk.

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The following is a sampling of questions and answers from separate interviews with Sharpton and Adams this summer. 

THE RECAST: What’s your first recollection of Eric Adams?

SHARPTON: I guess it was mid-‘80s. I had started with high-profile cases around Howard Beach, which was ‘86 I believe. And he was one who attended some of [Brooklyn pastor] Rev. Herbert Daughtry’s stuff and I started becoming known and he’d come around my stuff. What made him unique was he was a police guy and he said he had become a policeman at the encouragement of Rev. Daughtry to go inside and we kind of hit it off.

THE RECAST: What’s your first recollection of Al Sharpton?

ADAMS: I was with 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care. He was on the tracks. I was at DeKalb Avenue on the train. I was on the train going home or going somewhere and the train was stuck on the station because he was on the tracks with a bunch of other people.

I saw him walk down the tracks in a jumpsuit. I said, “What’s this guy doing?” He jumped on the tracks. It was during some protests and that’s when [he] got on my radar. I just started following some of the things he was doing.

Eric Adams, center-right, then president of the Police Guardians Association, stands beside the Rev. Al Sharpton, center, at a news conference in front of City Hall, Dec. 9, 1993. | Bebeto Matthews/AP Photo

THE RECAST: What was it like when Adams protected you off-duty during your 1992 Senate race?

SHARPTON: Eric remembers there was a demonstration somewhere and a guy, a police officer, said over the walkie talkie, “Al Sharpton is showing up. Should I let him in or shoot him?” And it hit the press. And Eric called me and said, “Look, we want to give you police protection when we off-duty.” And I said, “Really?” He said, “Man, you got them little girls. I know you think you’re Superman but you got to look out for your family.”

He came and announced it [at Rev. Floyd Flake’s church in Brooklyn], which I thought was a very bold thing to do because he’s standing up against other officers protecting somebody like me who was considered by most police unions as their enemy. 

THE RECAST: Do you recall when you were off-duty and helped guard Sharpton during his 1992 Senate race?

ADAMS: Someone said over the police radio, “There’s Rev. Sharpton, shoot him,” something like that. I don’t know the exact words but something very volatile. And I remember the organization coming forward and saying, “Listen, we can't take this for granted that something could happen to a civil rights leader under our watch.” We saw civil rights leaders like Medgar Evers, Dr. King and others — Malcolm — and so we just felt strongly, “Hey listen, we’re Black law enforcement officers. We cannot under our watch have a civil rights leader slain.”

Then-NYPD Lt. Eric Adams, center, co-founder of the group 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement, speaks during a news conference Aug. 18, 1999, in New York. | Marty Lederhandler/AP Photo

THE RECAST: How would you describe your relationship with Mayor Adams?

SHARPTON: I think that we are fellow travelers on the same highway in different lanes, and we understand we’re in different lanes trying to get to the same place, but we may take different exit ramps to get there. I may call a march on something; he may call a press conference. He may wish I didn’t call a march; I may wish he didn’t call a press conference. But both of us know in our hearts we just approach it differently and we always was like that.

THE RECAST: How would you describe your relationship with Rev. Sharpton?

ADAMS: Confidant, friend and older brother: someone when you’re in the midst of the moment, he’s someone I could sit in the room with. There’s a saying, “Good friends walk in the room when others walk out.” He always walked in the rooms. Unsolicited. Something happens of a major proportion, he’ll call me up and say, “What do you need? I’m there for you. Tell me what you need. Tell me what I need to do.” There’s not too many people who’d do that.

THE RECAST: Can you tell me about your decision not to endorse Adams in the 2021 Democratic mayoral primary?

SHARPTON: When Eric was running I was very close with Eric. I was very close with Ray McGuire. Ray McGuire was a big supporter of National Action Network and I worked very closely with Maya Wiley. My youngest daughter Ashley called me and said, “Are you going to get in this?” I said, “I don’t know. I got three people in it.” She said, “Well, I’m supporting Uncle Eric. Turn on the news. I just announced it.” I said, “Turn on the news? You're telling me you have already supported Uncle Eric?” She said, “That's my uncle so that’s how it is.”

Adams greets Sharpton during the 2022 National Action Network's Annual Convention at the Times Square Sheraton, April 6, 2022, in New York City. | Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

He always teases me. If I call and say, you know, “I want to talk to you about this thing you said about the White House,” he says, “You know this is my thing and you could help [or] you could disagree with me, I’ll just call Ashley.”

THE RECAST: Sharpton did not endorse you in the primary, but you were still in touch during that time. What was that like?

ADAMS: During the heat of the election when I was 13 points down behind Andrew Yang, I went to the office and sat down and spoke with him. We were chatting and he told me about during the civil rights movement, because he was around the giants at a young age, and there was one big bishop that said to him, during the midst of the battles with King and the rest, and the bishop called him and he says, “It’s going to all work itself out.” And he says, “All that’s going on now, Eric, is going to work itself out.” He was dead on and I think about that often.

It all works itself out as confusing as it may all seem. 

THE RECAST: What did you think of the recent federal monitor report that found illegal stop-and-frisks of Black and brown New Yorkers continues under Mayor Adams?

SHARPTON: I’ve reached out and talked to him and he says, “This is not the stop-and-frisk that we protested. This is protecting citizens without profiling them.” I said, “We need to look at the data.” And he says, “Whatever questions you want. Let’s sit down and go through it.”

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, left, and Sharpton enter a City Hall news conference Nov. 27, 2006, in the wake of the Sean Bell shooting. | Kathy Willens/AP Photo

Unlike the administration that would not, under [Former Mayor Mike] Bloomberg, even discuss stop-and-frisk, he’s been very open about it and says, “I’ll do a forum at your headquarters.” But I have raised it to him, I have seen the report, I’m concerned and I’m probably going to take him up on doing a forum.

THE RECAST: Sharpton said he may take you up on your offer to discuss the stop-and-frisk report at his National Action Network headquarters in Harlem?

ADAMS: What he understands, what a lot of people miss in his civil rights pursuit, which I like about Rev. Sharpton, is that he doesn’t believe the death caused by a rogue police officer in a blue uniform is any different in the level of pain than the death by a gang-banger in blue jeans.

He knows there’s a balance of not being abusive in policing and the tools that are needed to deal with the real violence that we are experiencing in certain parts of the city. And he understands that. Trust me, he’s not going to say, “Eric is my friend so I’m not going to criticize an agency or entity.” He’s going to do that. And we both understand that. But at the same time, he’s going to be sure that we look at the facts.

Read more from Julia’s interviews with Adams and Sharpton here.

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TGIF! Before we head out for the weekend, we’re leaving you with some reading, watching and listening fun for you. See you on the other side of the Labor Day weekend! 

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