ESPN

New Orleans Saints safety Malcolm Jenkins, a co-founder of the Players Coalition and prominent activist for social justice and racial equality, urged athletes, coaches and media “to do our part to make this country better” during Sunday night’s ESPYS broadcast, calling the events of the past month “a tipping point.”

“There’s no going back, there’s no inching forward,” Jenkins said during the awards show, held virtually because of the corona virus pandemic, as footage rolled of a recent Black Lives Matter protest in Los Angeles. “The time is now.”

Jenkins said the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile in 2016 left him feeling “hurt,” “defeated” and “confused” about what he wanted to do next. He said he found inspiration from watching LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul at the 2016 ESPYS challenge athletes and entertainers to use their platform to unify this country and also call out injustice.

“The next day, I jumped into action,” Jenkins said. “Unfortunately, only a fraction of us answered that call. But history has shown us the impact that only a few voices can make.”

Jenkins’ call to action on Sunday was joined by Olympic fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad, NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace, Utah Jazz star Donovan Mitchell and actor and activist Kendrick Sampson.

“I don’t know what more we, as a sports community, need to see than a white police officer kneeling on George Floyd’s neck and ripping his life from him, and having to see that for eight minutes and 46 seconds was heart-wrenching,” Muhammad said.

While it was the death of Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25 that sparked weeks of protests — many still ongoing — across the country, Mitchell noted that “too often we forget about black women like Breonna Taylor.” READ MORE

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