By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 21, 2003; 6:00 PM

Al Sharpton, who gained notoriety by inserting himself into racial controversies in New York in the 1980s and '90s and who since has become a political force in that city, today declared his interest in running for president in 2004, adding an unpredictable element to the battle for the Democratic nomination.

Sharpton filed a statement of candidacy and set up a presidential committee with the Federal Election Commission in downtown Washington, and then, standing under an umbrella to shield himself from a morning snow, said that no other candidate for president "can speak to the disaffected-young people, minorities, women, gays and lesbians-with more credibility and more of a track record of advocacy than I have."

Sharpton is the first African American to seek the Democratic nomination since Jesse Jackson, who ran in 1984 and 1988, and L. Douglas Wilder, the Virginia governor who briefly ran in 1992. In a field of candidates who do not have proven appeal nationally in the black community, his presence will intensify competition for the black vote in the primaries.

Some national Democratic Party leaders worry that Sharpton could have a destabilizing effect on the nomination battle, but he may not be the only African American candidate running in 2004. Last week, former Illinois senator Carol Moseley Braun told several Democratic officials that she is seriously thinking about getting into the presidential race as well.

Donna Brazile, who was Al Gore's 2000 campaign manager, has been promoting the idea of having African Americans in key states run as favorite son candidates, although she says not for the pure purpose of blunting Sharpton's candidacy. Brazile said she is more concerned about getting minority voters involved and committed to the Democratic presidential race early in the process to assure a bigger turnout against President Bush in the fall of 2004.

Jackson was asked recently what kind of impact Sharpton might have on the Democratic nomination fight, particularly in southern states where African Americans make up a substantial portion of the primary electorate. "There are people who know him [Sharpton] who don't know any of them [the other Democrats], but it's so early now, you don't know how it's going to play out."

Bill Lynch, a New York-based Democratic strategist, said none of the white Democrats in the race will naturally inherit the support of black voters that former President Bill Clinton and former vice president Al Gore enjoyed in their presidential campaigns. But he added, "I don't think the party should be concerned [about Sharpton's candidacy]. Sharpton's voice should be heard just like Jesse Jackson's in 1984. It opened up the party."

Sharpton, 48, brings one of the most controversial biographies of all the candidates to the 2004 contest, having made his initial reputation in such polarizing racial episodes as the 1987 Tawana Brawley case, in which the 15-year-old Brawley claimed she had been raped by a group of white men. Sharpton leaped to her defense, accusing several men of the crime, but later inquiries found her claims not to be true.

In 1988, Sharpton was convicted of defaming prosecutor Steven Pagones in the Brawley case and ordered to pay $65,000 in damages. He has never apologized for his actions in the Brawley hoax and refused again today in a brief press conference outside the FEC offices. "I believe we were right. . . . As I move around the country, people say 'whether I agree with your stand on Brawley or not, we like someone that stands by what they believe and has proven themselves right on all occasions."

Sharpton was at the center of other racial battles in New York, including protests over the 1986 assault of three black men in Howard Beach and the 1989 killing of a 16-year-old black man in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn. At the time, Sharpton earned a reputation, as one publication put it, of being a "rabble-rousing racial ambulance chaser."

Sharpton and others who know him have said his life took a turn in 1991, after he had been stabbed as he was preparing to lead a protest march. His campaign chairman, Roberto Ramierz, said today that Sharpton has changed since those days, saying he has evolved from "a medallion-carrying, jump-suit wearing political activist into a national and international" political force who has involved himself in police brutality cases and to whom New York politicians now pay deference.

On Monday, at the Harlem headquarters of his National Action Network, Sharpton presided over his annual Martin Luther King Jr. holiday event, and this year it attracted Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer, as well as an array of state and local political leaders. Sharpton's message included an appeal to the black community "to correct this misnomer that there's something hip and black about being down, about acting like a thug and acting like a hood."

Five other Democrats already have set up presidential committees: Sens. John Edwards (N.C.), John Kerry (Mass.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), former House Democratic leader Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) and former -Vermont governor Howard Dean. Several other Democrats, including Sen. Bob Graham (Fla.) and former senator Gary Hart (Col.), are looking at the race.