Al Good

4 min readJun 25, 2020

Why Reverend Al Sharpton’s tribute to George Floyd ranks among the best eulogies of all time

By Brad Hamilton

No matter what you might think of him, Reverend Al Sharpton knows how to deliver a powerhouse speech.

There are some who will never see past his involvement in the Tawana Brawley scandal, when he went to bat for the 15-year-old African-American girl from Wappingers Falls, NY, after she invented a story of racially motivated sexual assault in 1987, or his tax problems or his work as an informant for the FBI.

But there should be no doubt about his oratory skill. Or why he’s the nation’s most influential civil rights leader.

Not if you heard his impassioned memorial to George Floyd.

It was not Sharpton’s first tribute for victims killed by cops, but his rousing address June 4 at North Central University in Minneapolis is likely to be remembered as his finest, and not just because of its historical import.

Coming as it did during the apex of protests against police slayings of people of color, Sharpton’s valedictory could claim a spot among the best eulogies of all time. I say it belongs there, definitively so.

Marked by somber reflections, a biblical reference, humor, and slowly mounting outrage that rose to full-throated fury, Sharpton’s memorial was akin to the best Baptist sermons, which can be sublimely stirring. Its points of poignant peroration, punctuated by organ music, scored magnificently.

“When I stood at that spot,” he said, meaning the Minneapolis street where Floyd was killed, “the reason it got to me is that George Floyd’s story has been the story of black folks. Because ever since 401 years ago, the reason we could never be who we wanted and dreamed of being is you kept your knee on our neck.”

He repeated that phrase and that theme throughout, as a symbol of subjugation and also as homage to Malcolm X, who once famously said, “That’s not a chip on my shoulder; that’s your foot on my neck.”

Indeed, the neck remains an obvious and grim reminder of what white people did to black people. (“When he’s putting a rope around your neck,” Malcom X also said, “you call for God and he calls for God. And you wonder why the one you call on never answers you.”)

Sharpton got some laughs, talking about trying to squash cockroaches in his Brownsville apartment when he was a kid, and how that experience followed him. “I spent all my life chasing roaches all over this country,” he said.

He hadn’t ever met Floyd, though it was clear he’s grown fond of the man’s family members. But he captured the transformational impact of Floyd’s death and the Black Lives Matter movement by referencing the Book of Ecclesiastes, asking attendees to go to its third chapter, first verse.

“To everything there is a time and a purpose and a season under the heavens,” he said. “It’s a different time; it’s a different season.” He was dead right about that.

“Let us stand for what is right,” he implored, then later added: “We don’t want no favors. Just get up off of us.”

Sharpton has a lifetime of experience preaching, starting at age four when the Brooklyn-born activist is said to have delivered his first sermon. He became an ordained Pentecostal minister before his 10th birthday, so it’s not a surprise he’s a master of the craft.

And one could see the impact he had on the gathering, including Martin Luther King III, Jesse Jackson and Amy Klobuchar.

There was a section of empty seats in the chapel, which made me wonder who was supposed to have been there, in that area, and whether they will regret having missed Reverend Al at the height of his oratorical prowess.

Here the eulogy in full: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zjlAixki1M

Where do you think it ranks among the greatest of all time?

My favorite was for Muhammad Ali, who was indeed the greatest of all time, given by none other than Billy Crystal. It’s sad, hilarious, soaring — and captures the full measure of the man. Who knew these two were actually brothers?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOKCoctNk9A

There are other extraordinary eulogies.

Check out a few deserving contenders:

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Rosa Parks, 2015, by Oprah Winfrey:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cfhtfNfIPE

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Graham Chapman, 1989, by Jonathan Cleese and others from Monty Python:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm2XPkqENaw&feature=emb_title

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Jim Henson, 1990, by Frank Oz (the voice of Miss Piggy and Cookie Monster)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=154&v=zguccnOjnOI&feature=emb_logo