New York Mayor Eric Adams marked Good Friday by receiving a prison baptism from the Rev. Al Sharpton, participating in the religious rite with a group of men locked up in the troubled prison complex on Rikers Island.
The ceremony took place as part of a visit to the prison complex where Adams was scheduled to meet inmates on the Christian holiday.
“After I was arrested and subsequently elected mayor, I reminded these young men that where you are is not who you are,” Adams, a Democrat, said in a statement. “For the first time in their lives, their mayor didn’t look down on them – I sat side by side with them to be cleansed and recommit ourselves to get on the right path.”
Footage of the event provided by the mayor’s office appears to show Adams clasping hands with Sharpton during a prayer, as the Reverend washes Adams’ feet and Adams is baptized.
Adams and the civil rights leader have close ties through their long tenures in New York politics. Adams often calls on Sharpton’s satellite radio show and the pair have appeared together at City Hall events.
The city-run prison complex, plagued by violence and neglect, has been the subject of an ongoing legal battle that could result in a federal takeover of the prison.
The mayor also visited Rikers earlier this week to meet with inmates. In an interview this week on the New York radio program “The Breakfast Club,” Adams said he met “a group of twelve young brothers who had rededicated themselves to Christ.”
“I’ve been to Rikers Island more than any mayor in the history of the city, talking to inmates and corrections staff to try to change the situation on Rikers Island,” Adams said in the heated radio interview, which aired Friday broadcast.