Images: The “Get Your Knee Off Our Necks” March on Washington
Fifty-seven years after Martin Luther King Jr. spoke on the 1963 March on Washington, hundreds of protesters for racial justice once more gathered on the Nationwide Mall in Washington, DC. It was an emotional day of protesting in opposition to police violence, the fruits of a summer time of nationwide protests within the wake of George Floyd’s loss of life.
Rev. Al Sharpton, who first introduced the “Get Your Knee Off Our Necks” March at Floyd’s funeral in June, spoke from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, alongside the households of Black individuals who have been killed by police in latest reminiscence.
“For too lengthy, you acted like we didn’t matter,” Sharpton instructed the group. “They are saying, ‘Nicely, everyone issues.’ However everyone hasn’t mattered the identical in America. The rationale we had and we nonetheless need to say ‘Black Lives Matter’ is as a result of we get much less well being care, like we don’t matter. We go to jail longer for a similar crimes, like we don’t matter … Black lives matter, and we gained’t cease till it issues to everyone.”
Floyd’s sister, Bridgett Floyd, additionally addressed march-goers, asking them to hold on the legacy her brother created in loss of life. “My brother can’t be a voice immediately,” Floyd stated. “We’ve to be that voice, we have now to be that change.”
The march was deliberate earlier than 29-year-old Jacob Blake was shot seven instances within the again by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, triggering one other spherical of mass protests. Blake’s father, Jacob Blake Sr., instructed the Washington crowd that they have been holding court docket over racism in America, saying it “responsible, responsible, responsible.” Different audio system drove dwelling the necessity to vote this November.
Breanna Taylor’s mom, Tamika Palmer, thanked those that are working in direction of justice for her daughter’s loss of life after being shot by Louisville, Kentucky, police in a no-knock raid. “What we want is change,” Palmer stated. “And we’re at some extent the place we will get that change, however we have now to face collectively, we have now to vote.”
Organizers took care to forestall unfold of Covid-19, mandating that attendees put on a masks and doing temperature checks for anybody coming into the protest space across the Nationwide Mall.
However the urgency of the second pulled such an enormous crowd that hundreds of protesters crammed the world exterior the temperature checks, and it turned more durable to socially distance throughout the protest space itself because the afternoon progressed.
Temperatures within the 90s didn’t appear to discourage the crowds both, with many protesters wading into the reflecting pool to assist cool off.
The march sought to resume the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “I’ve a dream” speech from 1963, which he gave in entrance of 250,000 demonstrators. That march finally led to the Civil Rights Act, a sweeping set of legal guidelines banning discrimination on the idea of race, faith, intercourse, and nationwide origin throughout areas of public life, like housing, employment, and public lodging.
Whether or not the 2020 model achieves substantial legislative change stays to be seen.
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