Al Sharpton at Michael Brown funeral: Something is wrong in America Funeral for unarmed black teenager shot dead by police concluded with powerful eulogy by civil rights campaigner ___________________ ‘No community in America would tolerate an 18-year-old boy laying in the street for four-and-a-half hours and we won’t tolerate it either,’ Sharpton said. Photo: Reuters The funeral of Michael Brown, the unarmed black teenager shot dead by a white police officer, concluded on Monday with a powerful eulogy by the veteran civil rights campaigner, the Rev Al Sharpton, who declared the response to the killing demonstrated that “something is wrong in America”. “Michael Brown must be remembered for more than disturbances,” Sharpton said to the thousands of mourners who filled Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church in St Louis. “He must be remembered for: ‘This was when they started changing what was going on.’ This is one of those moments. And this young man, for whatever reason, has appealed to all of us.” To cheers from the crowd, Sharpton repeated his criticism of the riots that marred the aftermath of Brown’s deaths, saying of the teenager’s parents: “They had to break their mourning to ask folks to stop looting and rioting ... Can you imagine? They have to stop mourning to get you to control your anger. “Like you more angry than they are. Like you don’t understand that Michael Brown does not want to be remembered for a riot. He wants to be remembered as the one who made America deal with how we going to police in the United States.” He went on to criticise the militarisation of police forces in the US: “America is going to have to come to terms when there’s something wrong, that we have money to give military equipment to police forces, when we don’t have money for training, and money for public education and ... our children. Brown died after being shot at least six times by Darren Wilson. The shooting exposed a racial fault, unleashing decades of tensions, and leading to days of protests and unrest. “This afternoon Lesley and Michael Sr will have to do something that is out of order. They will have to lay their son to rest ... We should not sit here today and act like we’re watching something that is in order.” Sharpton said. The crowd – mostly African-American– began lining up two hours before the funeral was due to begin. Some wore t-shirts that read “Hands up, Don’t Shoot’ and ‘No Justice, No Peace’ – rallying cries from the protests. Many donned red ribbons, bandannas or clothing to show solidarity with the family. Mourners included family, friends, politicians, activists, celebrities and civil rights leaders, among them, Jesse Jackson, Martin Luther King III, Spike Lee and Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri. At the church, a large bouquet of red roses and a St Louis Cardinals baseball cap adorned Brown’s closed casket. As speakers read psalms and eulogized her son who they called “Big Mike” and “Mike Mike”, Brown’s mother Lesley McSpadden listened on intently from the front pew, rocking back and forth in her seat. “No community in America would tolerate an 18-year-old boy laying in the street for four-and-a-half hours and we won’t tolerate it either,” Sharpton said
Posted on: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 23:35:45 +0000
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