Al Sharpton Announces March On Washington In August
Rev. Al Sharpton and George Floyd’s family are planning a march on Washington this August.
Sharpton announced the plan Thursday while delivering a eulogy for Floyd, a Black man who died last week after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes as Floyd repeatedly gasped, “I can’t breathe.”
“We’re going back to Washington,” Sharpton told the crowd, specifically addressing Martin Luther King III, who was in attendance. “That’s where your father stood in the shadows of the Lincoln Memorial and said, ‘I have a dream.’ Well, we’re going back this August 28 to restore and recommit that dream, to stand up.”
“This is the era to deal with policing and criminal justice,” he added, noting the march would specifically be used to call for a federal policing equality act.
Aug. 28 is the 57th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech.
Derek Chauvin, the officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck, has been charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter. The three other officers who were with Chauvin at the time ― Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng ― were arrested Wednesday and charged with aiding and abetting Floyd’s murder.
Medical examiners concluded Floyd’s cause of death was “homicide by asphyxia.”
