MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The death of Sacramento native Tyre Nichols has sparked national conversation about how close we are to achieving Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream as Black History Month begins.
Reverend Al Sharpton used his eulogy of Nichols to remind the world that civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. He was just 39 years old and decades later, African-Americans are still being brutalized by people in law enforcement.
Nichols was beaten by at least five police officers in the same city King was murdered 55 years ago.
“In the city that Dr. King lost his life, not far away from that balcony you beat a brother to death. There’s nothing more insulting and offensive to those of us who fight to open doors that you walk through those doors and act like the folks we had to fight to get you through those doors,” said Reverend Al Sharpton, who is also a civil rights leader.
King said the time is always right to do what is right, but that thinking was not always popular during the 1960s, resulting in him becoming a very controversial leader.
The last Gallup poll to ask about his popularity during his lifetime, taken in 1966, found his unfavorable rating was 63%. His popularity in 2011 ballooned to 94%, but some of the same conversations around crime and policing urban communities continue to this day.
Sharpton is offering a reminder to all who sign up to protect and serve.
“You don’t stand up to thugs in the street by becoming thugs yourself. You don’t find gangs by becoming five armed men against one unarmed man. That ain’t the police, those are punks,” said Sharpton. “People had to march and go to jail and some lost their lives to open the doors for you. How dare you act like that sacrifice was for nothing?”
