Global protests against police brutality and racism have been ongoing since 46-year-old father George Floyd died at the hands of police on May 25. On Thursday's episode of the Tonight Show, incoming Captain America Anthony Mackie spoke to host Jimmy Fallon about the personal impact of these issues, as a black father and a black son.
"When I was growing up, like most boys, you want to be a fireman or a police officer," said Mackie. "And then comes the harsh reality of the day that you have to tell your kids that, you know, you have to open their eyes to what the world is around them, to how police view them as young black men."
Mackie told Fallon he wanted his sons to have the same sort of childhood dreams, but has to be honest about what happened and prepare them for the world.
"They don't understand the lack of humanity in a person to do that to another person," said Mackie. "They're 11 and seven years old."
Mackie also spoke about visiting the balcony where Martin Luther King was assassinated, and the heavy emotional impact of that moment.
"It blew my mind to think that this man worked so hard, and gave his life," said an increasingly tearful Mackie. "Yet here we are, 50 years later, 55 years later, dealing with the exact same thing.
"And that's what hurts. Because I know my grandfather was a sharecropper. My dad was a contractor. And he had to drop out of school in eighth grade to work with his grandfather, so that he could give me the opportunity to go to Juilliard and be a stupid actor."
Urging people to vote, Mackie asked people to go to his website I Am A Man, which aims to register one million men to vote.
"If you have a nephew, if you have a cousin, if you have a friend, if you have a young man who needs information, send him to this website. Send him to our page," said Mackie. "We will register him, we will educate him, and we will help him vote. 'Cause that's our power. That's where the strength comes in."
"We have a great opportunity right now to change the scope of the world," said Mackie.
