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Washington Wizards rookie Rui Hachimura was among the players on Friday that marched from Capital One Arena to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C. to help raise awareness for police brutality and racism.
Hachimura joined with Wizards teammates John Wall and Bradley Beal in the two-plus mile march to help spark social justice reform on Juneteenth, a holiday that celebrates the Emancipation Proclamation, issued by President Abraham Lincoln to free enslaved people in Confederate states. In addition to the three Wizards players, members of the Washington Mystics, including Natasha Cloud, were also on hand.
During the march, Beal recounted a story from 2018 in which he was pulled over by a police officer and threatened to be put in a headlock on the side of a road. Beal went on to say that because he was Black and driving an expensive vehicle that he was profiled by the police officer and nearly arrested for no reason, something that happens every day in the United States.
Warning: Video contains explicit language
🚨🚨MUST SEE🚨🚨#Wizards Bradley Beal (@RealDealBeal23) shares one of his many encounters with the police. This is the sad reality of so many black people.
For more: https://t.co/C6Di30tdS1@wusa9 @WUSA9sports #JuneteenthDay pic.twitter.com/fZ765Kkvnv
— Darren M. Haynes (@DarrenMHaynes) June 19, 2020
Historically, Juneteenth has been a day for Black people to help celebrate freedom but citizens around the U.S. used the holiday this year to continue raising awareness for police brutality and social injustices. The players onhand on Friday were seen wearing Black Lives Matter shirts, a movement started to condemn police brutality.
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