Rev. Al Sharpton Unity Breakfast
The Rev. Al Sharpton delivers the keynote speech at 14th annual Wenonah High School Unity Breakfast.
(Roy S. Johnson)
Birmingham City Schools used $3,000 in donations to pay the Rev. Al Sharpton to speak at the Wenonah High School Unity Breakfast last month, a spokeswoman for the school district confirmed to AL.com.
The school system raised $8,240 from 14 donors to pay for the breakfast, according to Birmingham City Schools spokeswoman Chanda Temple. The largest donations came from the Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church ($3,000), the law firm Fuston, Petway and French ($2,500) and Alabama State Rep. John Rogers ($1,000.)
Sharpton's fee to speak at the unity breakfast was $3,000. More than $1,300 was used to cover Sharpton's flight and hotel; $1,000 for airfare and $352 for his hotel stay.
During his keynote speech at the 14th annual unity breakfast on Feb. 24, Sharpton gave some tough love to the black community on gun violence.
"When you are raised by the culture to read you are worthless, to read that success is by how many guns you have, how many babies you got that you don't take care of ... then you shoot somebody that looks like you because you think they just as worthless as you are," he said. "Somebody's got to instill in them a sense of value and a sense of worth. ... You got to quit telling these kids that they ain't nothing."
He also criticized President Donald Trump and advised the black community to not be complacent.
"When I saw many of us [before the 2016 election] relax, get confident, stop raising issues, stop being diligent when we had President Obama ... and you just relax one second, some of y'all [said], 'I don't have to worry about the vote ' - Fast-forward the next month and find out all of what you had believed in had been Trumped," Sharpton said. "That's why this is a battle to the end and it's not a boxing match. You can't fight one or two good rounds. You gotta fight every round until the match is over. You don't believe that, ask the Atlanta Falcons."
Updated March 27 at 2:41 p.m. to clarify Sharpton was paid $3,000. His travel expenses were paid directly to the vendors.