At the funeral for George Floyd, who was killed when former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin put his knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes, Sharpton spoke with Floyd’s story is the story of black folks,” he said.

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Sharpton called for a moment of silence for exactly 8 minutes and 46 seconds, which was the amount of time Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck, even as Floyd begged and pleaded that he couldn’t breathe and called out for his mother.

“On August 28, the 57th anniversary of the March on Washington, we’re going back to Washington … We’re going back this August 28 to restore and recommit that dream (of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.) … We need to go back to Washington and stand up, black, white, Latino, Arab, in the shadows of Lincoln and tell them this is the time to stop this.”

The March is ”going to be getting us ready to vote, not just for who’s going to be in the White House, but the statehouse and the city councils that allow these policing measures to go unquestioned,” Sharpton also criticized Donald Trump’s vapid and violent photo-op in front of a church in Washington, D.C. this week.

TOPICS: In Defense of Black Lives News Al Sharpton Donald Trump george floyd In Defense of Black Lives March On Washington