Photos: After walking 1,000 miles, Alabama man reaches Floyd memorial in Minneapolis
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After seeing video of the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, Terry Willis felt compelled to do something.
Something to bring more attention to racial injustice, and police violence against Black people.
So the Alabama man started walking on June 2 in Huntsville. And on Sunday, more than 1,000 miles later, he reached the George Floyd memorial site in south Minneapolis.
"Watching him get murdered, I felt like that was the last straw and I needed to do something. And as one man I felt like I wanted to do something drastic to get the attention and the awareness on the change that we need, so I decided to walk a thousand miles across the country," he told MPR News ahead of the final leg of his journey.
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On Sunday morning a crowd gathered outside the Mall of America in Bloomington to join Willis. A few hours later, they reached the corner of 38th and Chicago where Floyd was killed.
Willis knelt at the spot as his supporters cheered the accomplishment. He left his shoes at the memorial.
Willis said he was overwhelmed by the outpouring of love from people who came out to support him on his walk.
"It's just eye-opening, you know — a thousand miles, by myself, most of the time just walking across the country," the 35-year-old father and business owner said ahead of the final leg. "I've had a lot of time to think about stuff — I'm a lot more humble, and again I'm grateful for everything that's happened."
Willis intended to walk directly from Huntsville to Minneapolis, but ended up taking detours to walk in Ferguson, Mo., Louisville, Ky., and Chicago, to visit sites where other Black men and women had been killed.
Thousands of people followed live videos of Willis' trek on his 1K Mile March Facebook page.
He is raising money to start a nonprofit organization "focused solely on teaching individuals with a criminal history and juvenile delinquents a trade, from barbering to carpentry."