Tens of thousands join Get Your Knee Off Our
Necks march in Washington DC
Rally highlighted police brutality and voting rights
Event organised by NAN, NAACP and National Urban
League
Joan E
Greve in Washington and Adam Gabbatt in New York
Fri 28 Aug
2020 19.43 BSTFirst published on Fri 28 Aug 2020 16.16 BST
Tens of
thousands of people gathered in Washington DC on Friday, demanding criminal
justice reform and voting rights following a summer of protests against
systemic racism and against police treatment of Black people.
The Get
Your Knee Off Our Necks march, announced in early June following the killing of
George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota, also marks the 57th
anniversary of the March on Washington, where Martin Luther King Jr gave his “I
have a dream” speechurging racial equality.
Thousands
gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, many wearing Black
Lives Matter T-shirts, as speakers demanded racial equality and an end to
police brutality in the US.
“We get
less healthcare, like we don’t matter,” said the civil rights leader the Rev Al
Sharpton, whose National Action Network organization was one of the event
organizers.
“We go to
jail longer for the same crime like we don’t matter. We get poverty,
unemployment, double the others, like we don’t matter.
“We’re
treated with disrespect by policemen that we pay their salaries like we don’t
matter. So we figured we’d let you know, whether we tall or short, fat or
skinny, light skinned or dark skinned, black lives matter.
“And we
won’t stop until it matters to everybody.”
King’s son,
Martin Luther King III, was among those to speak, telling the crowd they must
“defend the freedoms that earlier generations worked so hard to win”.
Friday’s
event comes ahead of a November election expected to see a record number of
mail-in ballots, and with a Republican party seemingly opposed to making it
easier to vote.
Donald
Trump has admitted he is blocking money sought by Democrats for the postal
service so he could stop people voting by mail.
“Our voting
rights are under attack,” King said.
“We must
vigorously defend our right to vote because those rights were paid for with the
blood of those lynched for seeking to exercise their constitutional rights.”
The
Democrat-controlled house of representatives has passed legislation making
voting more accessible in 2019, and recently renamed the bill the John R Lewis
voting rights act. The Republican controlled Senate has refused to act on the
legislation.
Organized
by the civil rights campaigner Al Sharpton’s National Action Network and groups
including the NAACP and the National Urban League, the speakers at Friday’s
rally also highlighted police brutality and the need for reform.
The
Washington march comes days after Jacob Blake became the latest in a series of
Black people to suffer brutal treatment at the hands of police.
Blake was
shot in the back by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Sunday, and remains in
hospital. His family said on Tuesday that Blake had been paralyzed from the
waist down.
Speaking on
Friday, Blake’s father, Jacob Blake Sr, said: “There are two systems of justice
in the United States. There is a Black system and a white system and the Black
system isn’t doing so well. I’m tired of looking at cameras and seeing these
young black and brown people suffer.”
Blake’s
sister, Letetra Widman, said Black people were done “catering to your
delusions”.
“America,
your reality is not real,” Widman said. “We will not pretend. We will not be
your docile slave. We will not be a footstool to oppression.”
Widman also
called on protesters to continue to march peacefully. “You must fight, but not
with violence and chaos – with self-love,” Widman said. She called out loudly:
“Black men, stand up. Stand up, Black men, and educate yourselves.”
The
families of George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Ahmaud Arbery, and
Breonna Taylor, all Black people killed by police or by individuals on the
extremist fringes who regarded themselves as vigilantes.
The march
was organized amid protests over the killing of Floyd.
The
46-year-old died after a police officer knelt on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes
and 46 seconds, including the final two minutes when Floyd was unconscious.
“The reason
why George Floyd laying there with that knee on his neck resonated with so many
African-Americans is because we have all had a knee on our neck,” Sharpton told
USA Today.
The march
was set to be the largest political gathering in Washington since the
coronavirus outbreak began to escalate in March.
The
thousands of participants streaming in for the march on Friday morning stood in
lines that stretched for several blocks, the Associated Press reported, as
organizers insisted on taking temperatures as part of coronavirus protocols.
Organizers
reminded attendees to practice social distancing and wear masks throughout the
program.
The march
will be matched by demonstrations in states which have a high Covid risk, NAN
said, including in Montgomery, Alabama and Las Vegas, Nevada.
The NAACP
is hosting a “virtual march” throughout the day.
Speakers
will include the New Jersey senator Cory Booker, congresswoman Brenda Lawrence,
from Michigan, and Stacey Abrams.
A group of
protesters are due at the march who have walked all the way from Milwaukee to
the nation’s capital for the event.
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