Multiple lawmakers took to the House floor Monday to make the “hands up, don’t shoot” gesture that has become a staple of the Ferguson protest movement.
Reps. Yvette Clarke, Al Green, and Hakeem Jeffries echoed and praised the same action made by five St. Louis Rams players before a football game Sunday, with Green likening it to the 1968 Black Power salute by American Olympic medalists John Carlos and Tommie Smith.
“I had a John Carlos moment, because I saw this clip where the Rams players came into the arena — ‘hands up, don’t shoot,’ ” Green said, raising his hands above shoulder-height. “It was a John Carlos moment, because this has become the new symbol, a new statement, a statement wherein people around the country now are calling to the attention of those who don’t quite understand that this is a movement that will not dissipate. It will not evaporate.”
Green said that young people should get the credit, attributing to their generation the advancement of the “liberation movement,” or the “continuation of what happened in 1968” with Carlos and Smith.
His remarks are below; the key bit begins at about 1:36.
Jeffries called the protest gesture “a rallying cry” for people “fed up” with police violence across the country.
