MINNEAPOLIS >> Police reform and civil-rights activists joined thousands of ordinary people Sunday to mark the fifth anniversary of George Floyd’s murder and decry the Trump administration for setting their efforts back decades.

The Rev. Al Sharpton said at a graveside service with the dead man’s family in Houston that Floyd, 46, represented all of those “who are defenseless against people who thought they could put their knee on our neck.”

He compared Floyd’s killing to that of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black child who was abducted, mutilated and slain in Mississippi in 1955 after being accused of offending a white woman.

“What Emmett Till was in his time, George Floyd has been for this time in history,” Sharpton said.

Events in Minneapolis centered around George Floyd Square, the intersection where police Officer Derek Chauvin used his knee to pin Floyd’s neck to the pavement for 9 1/2 minutes, even as Floyd cried “I can’t breathe.”

By midday Sunday, a steady stream of people were paying their respects at a memorial in front of Cupp Foods, where he was killed. Across the street, activists had set up a feeding area at an old gas station that has often served as a staging area since Floyd’s death. In the middle of the street, a fake pig’s head was mounted on a stick. The head wore a police cap.

Events started Friday with concerts, a street festival and a “self-care fair,” and were culminating with a worship service, gospel concert and a candlelit vigil on Sunday.

Even with Minneapolis officials’ promises to remake the police department, some activists contend the progress has come at a glacial pace.

“We understand that change takes time,” Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality, said in a statement last week. “However, the progress being claimed by the city is not being felt in the streets.”

Activists had hoped that the worldwide protests that followed Floyd’s murder on May 25, 2020 would lead to national police reform and focus on racial justice.

Under President Joe Biden, the U.S. Justice Department had aggressively pushed for oversight of local police it had accused of widespread abuses.

But the Trump administration moved Wednesday to cancel settlements with Minneapolis and Louisville that called for an overhaul of their police departments following Floyd’s murder and the killing of Breonna Taylor.