Al Sharpton Gives George Floyd’s Eulogy: ‘Get Your Knee Off Our Necks’

Reverend Al Sharpton delivered a eulogy for George Floyd on Thursday and he outlined in stark terms the situation for African Americans in the United States. Sharpton told a packed crowd that Floyd did not have to die and that racism was responsible.

“George Floyd should not be among the deceased. He did not die of common health conditions. He died of a common American criminal justice malfunction,” Sharpton said.

“It’s time for us to stand up in George’s name and say, ‘Get your knee off our necks.'”

Sharpton wasn’t alone in his condemnation of the system that allowed Floyd to die. Lawyer Benjamin Crump compared racial injustice to the Coronavirus, which has killed more than 100,000 Americans so far. He said it was ‘not the coronavirus pandemic that killed George Floyd.’

“It was that other pandemic,” Crump said. “The pandemic of racism and discrimination.”

A march on Washington, D.C. is expected on Saturday after days of protests across the country. Police have been deployed and there have been a number of incidents of police assaulting protesters – many of them caught on camera.

A fence has been erected around the White House despite the fact that protests over the past two nights have been largely peaceful.