Although he's been a public figure for three decades, the Rev. Al Sharpton is more visible these days than ever, often in ways even he wouldn't have dreamed when he was leading protests on the streets of New York in the 1980s.
If you watched the inauguration ceremony for President Barack Obama, you probably saw the dais behind him filled with the usual lot of past presidents, members of Congress and so on. You also may have caught sight of a new, and improbable, addition: Sharpton.
His exclusive seating among America's top dignitaries was a first for the controversial civil rights leader, whose career has been a thorn in the side of many politicians.
Sharpton recently told NPR: "I've had worse inaugurations. I remember George [W.] Bush's [2001] inauguration; we were marching because we thought he stole the election."
As reported on NPR's Tell Me More, it's a turnabout that comes just after the 25th anniversary of the Tawana Brawley rape case, the alleged hoax in New York that made Sharpton perhaps the most racially polarizing figure in the nation for a time.
Since then, the outsider gradually has become the consummate insider.
Once considered by many elected officials to be political kryptonite, Sharpton, 58, now has the ear of a sitting president. Once fiercely combative with the news media, Sharpton now is a prominent part of it as host of both a nationally syndicated talk-radio show, Keepin' It Real, and the MSNBC nightly program PoliticsNation.
Perhaps just as unlikely, MSNBC says that after 15 months, PoliticsNation has the largest audience in the 6 p.m. hour in the cable network's history. In addition, the show ranked second behind Fox's programming in both total viewers and the coveted 25-to-54-year-old demographic that advertisers covet.
A Day In The Life Of Al Sharpton