Al Sharpton Calls for Aug. 28 March on Washington at George Floyd Memorial

The Rev. Al Sharpton announced that he's organizing a march in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 28 to fight for policing and criminal justice reforms and mark the 57th anniversary of the original March on Washington.

During his eulogy at George Floyd's memorial service in Minneapolis on Thursday, Sharpton said he's working with Martin Luther King III as well as other faith and labor leaders to plan an event that will honor Floyd and the other black Americans who have died in police custody.

The march will resemble the original march in 1963 where Martin Luther King Jr. stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial and delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech during the civil rights movement.

"We're going back this Aug. 28 to restore and recommit that dream, to stand up because just like at one era, we had to fight slavery, another era we had to fight Jim Crow, another era we dealt with voting rights," Sharpton said in rousing remarks.

"This is the era to deal with policing and criminal justice. We need to go back to Washington and stand up – black, white, Latino, Arab – in the shadows of Lincoln and tell them this is the time to stop this," he added.

The memorial service comes during the ninth day of protests in Minneapolis after Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, kneeled on Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes. Chauvin, who has been fired since the deadly incident, was charged Wednesday with second-degree murder, and the three other offiers on duty were also arrested and charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.

Referencing Floyd's plea that he couldn't breathe, Sharpton, the founder of the National Action Network, said that black Americans have been stifled by racial injustice for generations and would keep marching and protesting until their demands for reforms are met.

"The reason we could never be who we wanted and dreamed of being is you kept your knee on our neck," Sharpton said. "Like George, we couldn't breathe. You wouldn't take your knee off our neck."