Al Sharpton

Alfred Charles "Al" Sharpton Jr. (born October 3, 1954) is an American civil rights activist, Baptist minister, television/radio talk show host and a trusted White House adviser who, according to 60 Minutes, has become President Barack Obama's "go-to black leader." In 2004, he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. presidential election. He hosts his own radio talk show, Keepin' It Real, and he makes regular guest appearances on Fox News (such as on The O'Reilly Factor),CNN, and MSNBC. In 2011, he was named the host of MSNBC's PoliticsNation, a nightly talk show.

Sharpton's supporters praise "his ability and willingness to defy the power structure that is seen as the cause of their suffering" and consider him "a man who is willing to tell it like it is." Former Mayor of New York City Ed Koch, a one-time foe, said that Sharpton deserves the respect he enjoys among black Americans: "He is willing to go to jail for them, and he is there when they need him." President Barack Obama said that Sharpton is "the voice of the voiceless and a champion for the downtrodden." A 2013 Zogby Analytics poll found that one quarter of African Americans said that Sharpton speaks for them.

PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton

PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton is a one-hour political talk show broadcast on MSNBC, hosted by Al Sharpton. It began on August 29, 2011 on MSNBC's weekday 6 PM slot, the first time that the slot had been occupied by a branded series since January 2011.

In August 2015, it was announced that the series would move to just once a week on Sundays at 8AM starting on October 4, 2015. The series aired its final weekday episode on September 4, 2015.

History

6 PM slot prior to renaming

PoliticsNation was the formal renaming of the 6 PM weekday slot that had been occupied by a broadcast named MSNBC Live (sharing the same "generic" title as the primary morning-to-afternoon rolling-news program primarily staffed by anchors. Sharpton had served as host of the slot since July, and was preceded by Cenk Uygur from January to June. Prior to Uygur, the slot had been occupied by The Ed Show from April 6, 2009 to January 24, 2011 (eventually moving to the 10 PM slot following Keith Olbermann's departure from MSNBC), and by 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue from March 17, 2008 (as Race to the White House) to April 3, 2009.

Nation

Nation (from Latin: natio, "people, tribe, kin, genus, class, flock") is a social concept with no uncontroversial definition, but that is most commonly used to designate larger groups or collectives of people with common characteristics attributed to them—including language, traditions, customs (mores), habits (habitus), and ethnicity. A nation, by comparison, is more impersonal, abstract, and overtly political than an ethnic group. It is a cultural-political community that has become conscious of its autonomy, unity, and particular interests.

According to Joseph Stalin: "a nation is not a racial or tribal, but a historically constituted community of people;" "a nation is not a casual or ephemeral conglomeration, but a stable community of people"; "a nation is formed only as a result of lengthy and systematic intercourse, as a result of people living together generation after generation"; and, in its entirety: "a nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture."

MSNBC

MSNBC is an American basic cable and satellite television network that provides news coverage and political commentary from NBC News on current events. The network also carries a prime-time 'opinion page' programming bloc with a mostly progressive slant. It is owned by the NBCUniversal News Group, a unit of the NBCUniversal Television Group division of NBCUniversal.

MSNBC and msnbc.com were founded in 1996 as separate partnerships between Microsoft and General Electric's NBC unit, hence the network's naming. Although they shared the same name, msnbc.com and MSNBC maintained separate corporate structures and news operations, with msnbc.com headquartered on the West Coast on the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington, and MSNBC in the NBC headquarters in New York. Microsoft divested its stake in the MSNBC channel in 2005, and divested its stake in msnbc.com in July 2012, rebranding the general news site as NBCNews.com and creating a new msnbc.com as the online home of the cable news channel. As of February 2015, approximately 94,531,000 households (81.2% of those with television) receive MSNBC within the United States of America.

Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live (abbreviated as SNL) is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title NBC's Saturday Night. The show's comedy sketches, which parody contemporary culture and politics, are performed by a large and varying cast of repertory and newer cast members. Each episode is hosted by a celebrity guest (who usually delivers an opening monologue and performs in sketches with the cast) and features performances by a musical guest. An episode normally begins with a cold open sketch that ends with someone breaking character and proclaiming, "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!", properly beginning the show.

In 1980, Michaels left the series to explore other opportunities. He was replaced by Jean Doumanian, who was replaced by Ebersol after a season of bad reviews. Ebersol ran the show until 1985, when Michaels returned; Michaels has remained since then. Many of SNL's cast found national stardom while appearing on the show, and achieved success in film and television, both in front of and behind the camera. Others associated with the show, such as writers, have gone on to successful careers creating, writing, or starring in TV and film.