Long-lasting change is within close reach for Black people, and now is no time to ease up on the momentum, according to John Boyega, who responded to the praise he received for giving a speech on racism in London’s Hyde Park last week.
The speech was given at a Black Lives Matter rally on June 3 in response to George Floyd dying on Memorial Day after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes.
Many said they were proud of Boyega for the viral speech, but in his response, he shied away from the compliments.
“I want to thank you all for the love and support you have shared over the last few days, although nothing I have done is for praise, or is truly even enough, in the grand scheme of things,” he wrote on Instagram on June 7 next to a photo of himself visiting a school in the London borough of Southwark.
One person accused him of using Floyd’s death as a way to get everyone to turn on white people and said because Boyega is not from the United States he should keep quiet.