Brown and Sharpton visited the White House to lobby for a national holiday to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. At about the same time, Sharpton said, the practice of racial profiling first appeared.

The Reagan era was the beginning of "an unspoken public policy" to make blacks and Latinos "invisible," Sharpton added.

"Law enforcement people thought they really weren't doing anything wrong," Sharpton said. "They were reflecting the broader pull of American society."

"Those of us who were marching--we went from being saluted to being demonized," he added.

Sharpton described incidents of racially motivated police brutality, including the cases of Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo. He also discussed his involvement in recent roadblocks protesting racial profiling.

"I'm supposed to go to jail in January or February... I don't know," he said, to the audience's amusement.

Sharpton also urged his audience to take advantage of the new millennium to make a clean start and help society rethink old prejudices.

Afterward, there was a question-and-answer discussion in which Sharpton was asked if he endorsed any political candidates. Sharpton replied that he opposed current New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giulani, who is now running for a New York Senate seat.