Al Sharpton Praises ’11 Whites, 1 Black’ Jury Following Ahmaud Arbery Trial

Al Sharpton applauded “a jury of 11 whites and one black” after returning three guilty verdicts in Ahmaud Arbery’s murder trial on Wednesday.

“And let the word go for all over the world that a jury of 11 whites and one black in the deep South stood up in the courtroom and said that black lives do matter,” Sharpton said.

Sharpton made his comments on the steps of the Glynn County courthouse alongside prominent civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump and the parents of Ahmaud Arbery.

Ahmaud Arbery was fatally shot last year in Georgia after three men claimed he had been involved in a series of local burglaries.

On Wednesday, Gregory McMichael, his son Travis McMichael, and William “Roddie” Bryan Jr. were convicted on felony murder charges after roughly ten hours of jury deliberations.

“Let it be clear that almost 10 years after Trayvon [Martin], God used Wanda and Marcus’s son, to prove that if we kept marching, and kept fighting, We would make you hear us,” Sharpton continued.

“We got a lot more battles to fight, but this was an important battle today. This was proven that our children know their value,” he said. “That’s why those people that march, I’m talking about the people here, that was here when nobody else was here, they stood up.”

Although Sharpton is known for his racially divisive language, the Arbery family has stayed away from bringing politics into this case. As Breitbart News’s Joel Pollak noted, “though the trial became racially and politically charged, it was not so initially; the Arbery family’s attorney, Lee Merritt, spoke frequently with Breitbart News and acknowledged that then-President Donald Trump had been helpful in the case.”

Further, Arbery’s father preached a message of unity following the trial, telling the crowd that “all lives matter.”