Al Sharpton is late -- two hours late and counting -- when he finally ambles into his small, ramshackle Harlem office, grunts sullenly at a waiting reporter, and vanishes with his tiny entourage (one bodyguard) into a back room to return a handful of phone messages. When Sharpton opens his door 20 minutes later, however, he's a changed man -- the old pro has got his media game face on, and he's beaming, offering vigorous handshakes, scanning for a photographer (I was alone), his raspy, percussive voice booming off the walls. The preacher has climbed back onto his pulpit, and he intones as if he's addressing his own private million-man march. Al Sharpton really knows how to pin your ears back.

Not that anyone has ever accused him of being subtle. From the moment Sharpton made his first appearance on the national stage, during the Bernhard Goetz trial in 1985, through the racial turmoil in Howard Beach and Crown Heights, to his participation in the notorious Tawana Brawley case, his social activism has been tinged -- many would say permanently tainted -- by his flamboyant personality, gadfly instincts, and penchant for overstatement and tabloid melodrama. He's managed to annoy just about everyone on the New York political scene, while demonstrating an uncanny ability to drag his issues onto the public stage.

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Next page: Tearing the veil of racism