*Killer Mike popped up at Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottom’s press conference on Friday (May 29) to urge those angry about George Floyd’s police-related death last week to channel it into constructive, productive movements.
“I am the son of an Atlanta police officer,” said Mike, who was flanked by the Mayor, Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields and fellow ATL rapper T.I. at the press conference. “My cousin is an Atlanta police officer. And my other cousin an East Point police officer.”
“And I got a lot of love and respect for police officers, down to the original eight police officers in Atlanta,” he added in a nod to the city’s first black officers, who were hired in 1948.
Fighting back tears, Mike continued: “I watched a white police officer assassinate a black man. And I know that tore your heart out. And I know it’s crippling, and I have nothing positive to say in this moment, because I don’t want to be here.”
But, he said, wiping his eyes, it wasn’t just Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others who marched and protested to help bring progress to Atlanta and other cities. It was also the rapper’s grandmother, his aunts and uncles and a number of many civil right leaders who did their part to bring about change.
“So I am duty-bound to be here to simply say that it is your duty not to burn your own house down for anger with an enemy,” he said. “It is your duty to fortify your own house so that you may be a house of refuge in times of organization. And now is the time to plot, plan, strategize, organize and mobilize.”
Watch Killer Mike’s speech below.
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