A plan to march on Washington this August is going to be joined by Rev. Al Sharpton and George Floyd’s family.
While delivering a eulogy for George Floyd, Sharpton announced the plan on Thursday. Floyd was 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.”
Sharpton told the crowd: “We’re going back to Washington,” 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.”
