POLICE reform and civil rights activists joined thousands on Sunday to mark the fifth anniversary of George Floyd’s murder and decry the Trump administration for actions they say set their efforts back decades.

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

He compared Mr Floyd’s killing to that of Emmett Till, a 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,” Reverend Sharpton said.

Events in Minneapolis centred around George Floyd Square, the intersection where police Officer Derek Chauvin used his knee to pin Mr Floyd’s neck to the pavement for nine-and-a-half minutes, even as Mr Floyd cried “I can’t breathe.”

In the middle of the street, a fake pig’s head was mounted on a stick. The head wore a police cap.

Activists argue that progress on racial justice has been slow.

“We understand that change takes time,” Communities Against Police Brutality president Michelle Gross said 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 Mr Floyd’s murder on May 25 2020 would lead to national police reform and focus on racial justice.

Under President Joe Biden, the US Justice Department had pushed for oversight of local police it had accused of widespread abuses. But the Trump administration moved on Wednesday to cancel settlements with Minneapolis and Louisville that called for an overhaul of their police departments following Mr Floyd’s murder and the killing of Breonna Taylor.

President Donald Trump has also declared an end to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives within the federal government.

In Houston, Mr Sharpton slammed the administration’s settlement cancellations, saying they were “tantamount to the Department of Justice and the president spitting on the grave of George Floyd.”

“But the reason that we will not be deterred is that Trump was president when George Floyd happened and he didn’t do anything then. We made things happen. And we’re going to make them happen again.”

Detrius Smith of Dallas, who was visiting the Floyd memorial site, said: “We can work together so everybody can move forward and not have something like that continue to happen in this nation.”