Civil rights leaders, households of Black victims rally in opposition to police violence
Fifty-seven years after the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech on the Lincoln Memorial, a brand new era of leaders within the racial justice motion spoke on the identical spot on Friday and dedicated themselves anew to pursuing King’s imaginative and prescient.
“Lower than a yr earlier than he was assassinated, my grandfather predicted this very second,” Yolanda Renee King, the daughter of King’s oldest son, Martin Luther King III, mentioned in main the audio system’ portion of the day. “We now have solely simply begun to battle.”
The Get Your Knee Off Our Necks march — organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton and his Nationwide Motion Community — comes at a time of nationwide unrest and ongoing protests over Black folks being slain or severely injured by the police. (Sharpton can also be a number on MSNBC.)
Audio system at Friday’s march included the daddy of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man who was shot seven instances by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Sunday and left paralyzed from the waist down.
“I’m bored with taking a look at cameras and looking out and seeing Black and brown folks undergo,” Jacob Blake Sr. mentioned. “We’re not taking it anymore. I ask everybody to face up.”
Different audio system included the mom of Breonna Taylor, an EMT who was killed by police in her own residence in Louisville in March, and the brother of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who died after pleading for assist as a white police officer kneed him within the neck in Might.
Tamika Palmer, Taylor’s mom, urged folks on the march to “stand collectively” and vote in November.
As the gang chanted Breonna Taylor’s title, Palmer was puzzled after thanking the individuals who have fought for justice for her daughter. (No prices have been introduced in opposition to the officers concerned within the raid that killed Taylor.)
“I want George had been right here to see this proper now,” Philonise Floyd, George’s brother, mentioned. “That’s who I’m marching for. I’m marching for George, for Brianna, for Ahmaud, for Jacob, for Pamela Turner, for Michael Brown, Trayvon and anyone else who misplaced their lives.”
Floyd added that as we speak it has “by no means been extra clear” that change is required.
“Everybody right here has made a dedication, as a result of they wouldn’t be right here for no different cause proper now,” he mentioned.
Sharpton first proposed the march on June four whereas delivering the eulogy for George Floyd. The choice to announce the march, after briefly discussing it with Martin Luther King III, was spur of the second, Sharpton mentioned.
Throughout his speech, Sharpton defined that one of many causes for the march was to demand police accountability via federal laws.
“Demonstration with out laws won’t result in change,” he mentioned. Amongst his calls for was that the GOP-majority Senate go the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act — a invoice that goals to fight police brutality, use of extreme drive, and racial bias in policing.
Sharpton later criticized President Donald Trump for failing to acknowledge Jacob Blake, in addition to others like Taylor who had been killed by police.
“How do you communicate when this younger man Jacob sits in a hospital and also you received’t name his title?” Sharpton mentioned to the gang, which Nationwide Motion Community organizers tallied of upward of 50,000.
After the speeches, protesters marched — socially distanced — for a few half mile from the Lincoln Memorial to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.
On the finish of his speech, Sharpton instructed the gang that it was time to have a dialog with America.
“We have to have a dialog about your racism, about your bigotry, about your hate, about how you’d put your knee on our necks whereas we cry for our lives,” Sharpton mentioned.
“We didn’t come right here to start out hassle. We got here to cease hassle.”
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