Sharpton: ‘What George Floyd Represented Will Last and Keep This Country Going on the Right Course’

EXCERPT:

SHARPTON: "Well, the general feeling, of course, was being there with the family, and we literally went to the grave, was reminding them of the pain. But then the feeling of how far people have tried to come backwards on what was committed. If you remember that time, five years ago feels like 50. There was everyone saying we need to come with a reckoning of race and a reckoning of policing, and we saw things being offered, like the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, consent decrees with cities like the city he was killed in, Minneapolis, and the city Breonna Taylor was killed in, Louisville, all of that being rescinded now. And what I was saying all weekend at the churches and the rallies we had is there’s always a backlash. When you go forward, you go backwards. I mean, two months after the March on Washington in '63, when King made his great speech, 'I have a dream,' a guy bombed a church in Birmingham. There’s going to be backlash. We’ve got to keep going. And I think that we’re at this stage now trying to hold on to whatever can be sustained from what happened five years ago and move forward, and not overreact to the fact that there’s some temporary losses. We should expect that and move on and fight on, because what George Floyd represented, I think will last and keep this country going on the right course if we’re determined."