AUSTIN, Texas – Dozens of University of Texas football players marched with Austin police officers from campus to the state Capitol to honor the memory of George Floyd on Thursday.
Many of the players locked arms on the two-mile walk that stopped on the north side of the Capitol, the opposite side of the building from where protesters have gathered for several days.
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Once there, the group and police officers took a knee for nine minutes to symbolize the amount of time Floyd was detained on the ground by Minneapolis police before he died.
“This protest won’t just stop here,” junior safety Caden Sterns, who graduated from Steele High School in San Antonio, said. “To the white community ... if you want change like you say you do, you must change. What I mean is, you must realize, and the oppressor must realize, you are oppressing.”
The players were joined by coach Tom Herman.
“I’m so proud,” Herman told the players, urging them to “be agents of change.”