Paul McCartney is speaking out against racism following the death of George Floyd.
The former Beatles member took to social media Friday (June 5) to share an encouraging message about working together to fight social injustice as protests over Floyd’s murder continue around the country.
“I know many of us want to know just what we can be doing to help. None of us have all the answers and there is no quick fix but we need change,” the 77-year-old music icon tweeted. “We all need to work together to overcome racism in any form. We need to learn more, listen more, talk more, educate ourselves and, above all, take action.”
McCartney went on to recall a time in 1964 when The Beatles refused to play a concert with a segregated audience in Jacksonville, Fla.
“It felt wrong. We said ‘We’re not doing that!’ and the concert we did do was to their first non-segregated audience,” he wrote. “We then made sure this was in our contract. To us it seemed like common sense.”
McCartney also noted that he is “sick and angry” that racial tension still exists after so many years.
“I feel sick and angry that here we are almost 60 years later and the world is in shock at the horrific scenes of the senseless murder of George Floyd at the hands of police racism, along with the countless others that came before,” he tweeted.
McCartney joins a long list of celebrities seeking justice for Floyd, an unarmed black man, who was suffocated by a white police officer in Minnesota. The officer, Derek Chauvin, was later charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.
The former Beatle shared links to several organizations seeking to fight racism, including Black Lives Matter, Color of Change, the NAACP, Stand Up to Racism, Campaign Zero and Community Justice Exchange.
