On Tuesday, Jay-Z’s Team Roc (the philanthropic arm of Roc Nation) took out full-page ads in a number of U.S. newspapers to pay tribute to the memory of George Floyd, whose death at the hands of Minneapolis police last week has sparked days of protests all over the world.
The ad includes a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from a March 1965 address in Selma, Alabama. “A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true. So we’re going to stand up amid horses. We’re going to stand up right here, amid the billy-clubs. We’re going to stand up right here amid police dogs, if they have them. We’re going to stand up amid tear gas!”
The ad appeared in the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Philadelphia Enquirer, among others, and was signed by Jay-Z, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Van Jones’ Reform Alliance, the Women’s Global Initiative, Angela Rye, Michael Eric Dyson, and the parents of Botham Jean, DJ Henry and Antwon Rose II, all of whom were unarmed black civilians killed by police officers.