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New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams marked Good Friday by receiving a jailhouse baptism from the Rev. Al Sharpton, becoming a member of in on the spiritual ceremony with a gaggle of males incarcerated on the troubled Rikers Island jail complicated.
The ceremony got here as a part of a go to to the jail complicated the place Adams was scheduled to satisfy with detainees on the Christian vacation.
“Having been arrested after which elected mayor, I reminded these younger males that the place you might be just isn’t who you might be,” Adams, a Democrat, stated in an announcement. “For the primary time of their lives, their mayor didn’t look down at them — I sat facet by facet with them to be cleansed and recommit ourselves to getting on the appropriate path.”
Pictures from the occasion, supplied by the mayor’s workplace, seem to indicate Adams interlocking palms with Sharpton throughout a prayer, the reverend washing Adams’ toes and Adams being baptized.
Adams and the civil rights chief have shut ties by way of their lengthy tenures in New York politics. Adams typically calls into Sharpton’s satellite tv for pc radio present and the pair have appeared collectively at Metropolis Corridor occasions.
Plagued by violence and neglect, the city-run jail complex, has been the topic of an ongoing legal battle that might lead to a federal takeover of the ability.
The mayor had additionally visited Rikers earlier this week to satisfy with detainees. In an interview this week on New York Metropolis radio present “The Breakfast Membership,” Adams stated he met with “a gaggle of 12 younger brothers who recommitted themselves to Christ.”
“I’ve been on Rikers Island greater than any mayor within the historical past of town speaking with inmates and correction officers to show round what’s occurring on Rikers Island,” Adams stated within the heated radio interview, which aired Friday.
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