Henry Stone: “Al Sharpton Was a Promotion Man for James Brown”

“Al Sharpton was a promotion man for James Brown. He was doin somethin…promotion…or he was like, uh, hangin out. Some of these guys, they’re like hangeronners yaknow, but let’s say I give him the benefit of the doubt that he did some actual promotion for him. That’s when I first met him, through James Brown. And through the years I met him a couple times.

I met him, let’s see….I was on a plane with my lawyer goin up to see Morris Levy cause I was getting ready to split the companies and everything, and Morris was goin’ to Australia before he got busted. And I remember at the airport I hear someone screaming “Henry Stone!!!”

He comes running over and it was Al Sharpton, he says, “Henry, man, I haven’t seen ya in years, c’mere I want you to meet somebody.”

He grabs me by the hand and introduces me to Don King. And he says to Don, “This is James Brown’s man, he’s the only white man you should trust.” Now, Don King, he trusts a lot of white men. He made a lot of money for white people on that boxing shit. Big hustla man, great hustla.

And then I saw Al Sharpton at James Brown’s funeral too. He was glad to see me. And then about a week later we had a big thing here at the Hard Rock Casino, sort of all the James Brown people came down, all those friends and buddies, Al Sharpton, Charles Bobbit, and I think Don King was there too promoting a fight. I remember after the fight we all went into the VIP room and had dinner together with Sharpton. I think that’s when my son Joe met Al Sharpton.”

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