Actor and comedian Jamie Foxx joined a “kneel in” in front of City Hall in San Francisco on Monday and said Hollywood celebrities should come out on the streets to support protesters in response to the death last week of George Floyd.
“I’m not Hollywood,” Foxx said at the event where San Francisco Mayor London Breed also spoke. “I’m just a person, it just happened to be my job.”
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But later in his remarks Foxx said he has heard from other Hollywood celebrities and he has encouraged them to join the protests.
“The best way to help out is to just let them see your face,” Foxx said. “All I want to do is just let you see my face.”
Foxx told the crowd that they should comfort black mothers who have also lost sons.
“It just wasn’t televised,” Foxx said.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported “interfaith leaders” organized the event.
The Rev. Amos Brown, Rabbi Jonathan Singer, the Rev. Joseph Bryant Jr. and pastor Arelious Walker will be joined by San Francisco District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton and actor/musician Jamie Foxx.
Brown, the president of the San Francisco NAACP and pastor of Third Baptist Church, said the idea originated last week when his son David Brown, who works with Foxx, spoke to the actor about Floyd. Foxx, who grew up in Terrell, Texas, knew members of Floyd’s family.
“They wanted to do something and make it a movement, not just a reaction,” Brown said of his son and Foxx in the Chronicle report.
“They wanted to come to San Francisco to stand with the San Francisco community. They remembered Mario Woods and Oscar Grant in Oakland.”
Brown was referring to Woods, 26, who was shot and killed by police in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood in 2015 and Grant, 22, who was shot and killed by a BART police officer in 2009.
Brown said they chose the location to protect it from interference from outside groups that have turned protests into destructive riots around the country since Floyd’s death.
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