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George Floyd's story "has been the story of black folks", Rev Sharpton told the Minneapolis service.
Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski was asked on Thursday to respond to former Defence Secretary James Mattis’s blistering criticism of his former boss, President Donald Trump, in an article published the previous day.

“I felt like perhaps we are getting to a point where we can be more honest with the concerns that we might hold internally and have the courage of our own convictions to speak up," she said. “I thought General Mattis's words were true, and honest and necessary and overdue.”

Murkowski has always been a bit of a wildcard. She won re-election to the Senate in 2010 after losing the Republican primary and running as a write-in candidate. She voted against Republican efforts to repeal Barack Obama’s healthcare reform in 2017. In 2018, she was the lone Republican opposed to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh after a brutally partisan confirmation process.

So it’s hard exactly to figure whether her recent expression of doubt about supporting Trump reflects a turning point for the Republican Party or just another jab from an iconoclast.

Mattis’s critique of the president, however, was particularly stinging – and particularly noteworthy. A ex-general and former senior official in the Trump administration was accusing the president of being willfully divisive, suggesting he was abusing his power and making a “mockery of the Constitution”. It may give cover for other former officials, who have occasionally criticised the president without attribution, to come out of the shadows.

Trump responded in predictable fashion (by attacking Mattis) and in a predictable forum (Twitter).

The president’s penchant for counterpunching, however, may work against him here. Besides inducing Murkowski’s reflection, Trump’s social-media belittling of Mattis prompted another former top aide, ex-chief of staff John Kelly, to contradict the president’s account of Mattis’s departure from the administration and call the former general an “honourable man”.

Early in his presidency, Trump had a penchant for surrounding himself with former military officers. Now that his threat of sending active duty military unites to secure US cities – even over the objections of local officials – has caused unease among the armed forces, those early staffing moves may come back to haunt him.

If the military is closing ranks in opposition of the president, they could make life very hard for him in the days ahead.