In October 2020, the Loudmouth film crew followed Sharpton as he celebrated his 65th birthday at a celebrity-packed gala in the New York Public Library. The event was co-chaired by Tanya Lombard, head of Multicultural Engagement and Strategic Alliances at AT&T, graduate of Harvard Business School, member of the Clinton Global Initiative, and self-described “Transformational Change Agent”—an example of how, like Sharpton himself, the so-called racial justice movement has graduated from the streets to the C-Suites.
Phil Griffin, president of MSNBC, was among the notable figures who took the stage to laud the guest of honor. “I spent my entire career working in media,” he says. “I always tell people, ‘If you want to understand the media world and how it’s changed, you follow the life of Reverend Al Sharpton.'” Viewers who know anything at all about Al Sharpton or the media world will laugh out loud.
He wasn’t joking.
The late Don Imus would agree with Griffin, which is why Sharpton was soon paid his weekly protection money by MSNBC.