Activists in North Manchester gathered for a local socially-distanced Black Lives Matter protest, reports Penny Hicks

On Wednesday evening, around 200 local people in Prestwich, North Manchester gathered in the shopping centre car park to protest the murder of George Floyd. The car park was a perfect place to keep the protest properly socially distanced. We took the knee for eight minutes and 46 seconds – the length of time that the Minneapolis police officer had his knee on George Floyd’s kneck.

Using the Facebook page for the area activists, we put the word out and the local press picked the story up. Families and young people walked in with homemade signs and chanted and clapped in memory of George Floyd.

Our protest is a good example of how people in local areas all over the country have been coming together in a safe way to express our anger at the brutal police violence in the US, our solidarity with everyone else protesting and our determination to organise against racism.