Its working name is the Civil Rights Museum of New York. He said he has no intention of making a shrine, but he will surely have a prominent place within.

“It’s debatable if nonviolence is as good as self-defense,” Mr. Sharpton said. “It’s debatable if we needed King’s love message or Malcolm’s black pride more. What’s not debatable is that Martin Luther King made sure that Rosa Parks was on the front of the bus, and we can now sit on the front of the bus.

“It’s not debatable that you did not have stop and frisk in New York City after we went after it,” he continued.

“‘Sharpton’s a demagogue,’” he said, mocking critics. “Whatever. Is stop and frisk here? No. At the end of the day, when it’s all over, people will not care about my hairstyle or my old tracksuit. They will say, ‘He did this, this, this, and this.’”

He simply needs to not lose ground under the current administration.

The last time Mr. Sharpton had any contact with Mr. Trump, he said, was at the 40th anniversary show of “Saturday Night Live.” Both men had hosted the show at some point, and so they were invited. It was February 2015, roughly four months before Mr. Trump descended the escalator in Trump Tower to declare his candidacy for president. They ran into each other backstage and shook hands.

“He said, ‘Al, you still beat me up,’” Mr. Sharpton recalled, impersonating Mr. Trump. “‘But hey, you gotta do what you gotta do, and I gotta do what I gotta do,’” Mr. Sharpton recounted. “I said, ‘I’m gonna tell you what you’re doing is wrong.’”

It was a good scene. It flattered Mr. Sharpton, made him sound like a hero. It might have been true.