Michael Hardy, lawyer to civil rights leader and WBLS talk show host Rev. Al Sharpton, has passed away. He was 69.
The news arrives in a statement released on Monday, July 22 by the National Action Network (NAN), the Harlem-based civil rights organization that Sharpton founded in 1991.
The statement reads:
“It is with profound sadness that civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton announces the passing of his longtime attorney, confidante and brother in the movement, Attorney Michael Hardy.
From the infancy of NAN’s inception in 1991 to the present day, he had an enormous impact on the evolution of the organization. For over thirty years, Attorney Hardy stood beside Rev. Sharpton as a brilliant legal counselor and steadfast friend who was a legal architect behind some of the most important civil rights cases of our time. Even while seriously ill, he walked with NAN until his very last step.
While memorial service arrangements have not been formalized, many in the movement pause today to acknowledge Michael’s memory and to thank a higher power that he was such a great human being. We are praying for his widow, Dr. Robin, and his family.“
The MTA paid respect to Hardy for his legal expertise in creating a fairer transit system.
“All of us at MTA are saddened to hear of the passing of Michael Hardy, who was a singular figure alongside Rev. Al Sharpton in the civil rights movement for decades. In addition to his enduring work at the National Action Network, Michael was a valued member of the MTA’s Blue-Ribbon Panel on Fare and Toll Evasion, bringing important perspective and legal expertise to creating a fairer and more affordable transit system for all New Yorkers. May his memory be a blessing.”
Hardy had been a practicing attorney since 1988 and had long lamented “this nation’s history and its relationship to racial discrimination, anti-Semitism, segregation and slavery.” In 1991 he became one of the founders of Sharpton‘s National Action Network (NAN), where he held the title of General Counsel since 2008.
As the New York Times, reports Hardy represented Sharpton many times at the start of his career. He helped persuade authorities to reduce or dismiss charges for Sharpton including accusations of misappropriating funds.
Hardy also defended Morris Powell, a black nationalist who in 1995, while heading Sharpton’s “Buy Black” Committee, led NAN activists in a racially charged boycott against Freddy’s Fashion Mart, a Harlem-based business owned by a Jewish man named Fred Harari.
The late attorney was an advocate for the redistribution of wealth. In a November 2013 piece titled “The Forgotten Man,” which he wrote for the Huffington Post, Hardy articulated his clear preference for big government and the wholesale redistribution of wealth. “The rich are getting richer, while the poor are getting poorer. America will soon have to find its way. This disparity between rich and poor plays out on many levels,” he wrote.
Additionally, he voiced support for the “tremendous” work of the anti-capitalist Occupy Wall Street movement, praised the Black Lives Matter movement, and lauded Senator Bernie Sanders for speaking out about the “inequities” and the “big gaps in wealth” that allegedly pervade American society.