with the blood of Sean Bell!" cried Sharpton (above) to his congregation of dissent in Harlem. "We know strategically how to stop the city so people stand still and realise that you do not have the right to shoot down unarmed, innocent civilians!" The crowd swayed back and forth and clapped as they sang: "Shut it down! Shut

it down!"

It makes an old-time New Yorker misty-eyed. Will Manhattan explode into the riots of Los Angeles after the Rodney King Verdict let its cops off in 1992? Will we get another chapter in the saga of Sharpton, always hilariously reminiscent of Tom Wolfe's Reverend Bacon, the Harlem preacher in Bonfire of the Vanities?

Things may have changed but Sharpton, 54, just keeps rolling on. Critics who call him a charlatan have no idea of how truly he reflects his culture. At 7 he was declared the 'Wonder Boy Preacher', ordained by the famed Pentecostal Bishop F.D. Washington of Brooklyn and toured as the warm-up act for gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. At school he organised student protests and was awarded