NEW YORK – Rev. Al Sharpton didn’t appear to have much in common with the late Sen. Strom Thurmond.
Thurmond ran for president in 1948 as a segregationist. Sharpton ran for president in 2004 calling for racial equality.
But last week Sharpton learned the two did have a connection after genealogists found he was a descendent of a slave owned by relatives of Thurmond in South Carolina.
“It was probably the most shocking thing in my life,” Sharpton said at a news conference Sunday, the day the Daily News reported the link.