Delivering the eulogy at a memorial service inside a university chapel in Minneapolis, Sharpton said Floyd’s fate - dying at the hands of police, pinned to the ground under the knee of a white officer - symbolized a universal experience of police brutality for African Americans. “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 led mourners in eight minutes and 46 seconds of silence, the amount of time Floyd lay on a Minneapolis street with a knee pressed into his neck. . .: 'Get your knee off our necks,' activist Sharpton tells George Floyd memorial (06/04/2020)
We want to put people all over this country. They want to suppress our vote. We’ve got to have foot soldiers that will protect the vote and that will be out there. . .We could have developed and been as successful as others, but society had their knee on our neck. But we’re not going to lay and submit no more. We are not going to take it. Some have different tactics, but we all are rising up. You going to get your knee off our neck. If we got a march every day, if we got a vote every day, we will get your knee off our neck. Enough is enough. Enough is enough. Enough is enough. No justice. [Crowd: (20:30)] No peace. . .: Al Sharpton Speech Transcript: 2020 March on Washington (08/28/2020)