Rev. Al Sharpton Calls For March For George Floyd In Washington

The Rev. Al Sharpton, during his eulogy at a memorial for George Floyd in Minneapolis on Thursday, announced plans for a march in Washington on Aug. 28, the anniversary of the original March on Washington in 1963 where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.

“Because on Aug. 28, the 57th anniversary of the March on Washington, we’re going back to Washington, Martin,” Sharpton said. “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 Aug. 28 to restore and recommit that dream,” Sharpton said. “To stand up, because just like at one era we had to fight slavery, another era we had to fight Jim Crow, another era we dealt with voting rights. This is the era to deal policing and criminal justice.”

He further added, “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.’”

Rev. Sharpton also called for a federal policy to address a wide range of policing issues, including the inability to fully background check police officers and creating residency requirements for officers to live in the communities they police.

At the close of his eulogy,  Rev. Sharpton asked Eric Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, to join him and civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump on stage while those gathered stood in silence for 8 minutes, 46 seconds — the exact same amount of time a white Minneapolis police officer knelled on Floyd’s neck during the arrest where he died.