The Reverend Al Sharpton rejected a plea offer yesterday and will go to trial in September on a disorderly conduct charge related to demonstrations over the fatal shooting of an unarmed man on his wedding day.

Rev. Sharpton declined to plead guilty in exchange for time served. He was held for 5-1/2 hours on May 7 after he and scores of others were arrested for blocking intersections to protest the acquittals of three officers in the Sean Bell shooting.

He said outside court yesterday that the plea offer was unfair and that the charges against him and others should be dropped.

A judge offered to drop charges against Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman, friends of Bell who were wounded in the November 25, 2006, shooting, provided they stay out of trouble for six months. Bell was killed in a hail of 50 police bullets as he left his bachelor party at a Queens topless bar.

Rev. Sharpton said his decision to go to trial was “a matter of law, not just a matter of principle.”

He said that although all the defendants were arrested for doing the same thing, those who had records of civil rights activism were “singled out” and weren’t given the opportunity to have their cases adjourned.

A spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney, Barbara Thompson, said officials in her office “looked at each case individually.”

Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Neil Ross scheduled a trial for Rev. Sharpton and about 10 others on September 10.