By COREY WILLIAMS, DEEPTI HAJELA and AARON MORRISON

AP – Momentum for what many hope is a sustained movement aimed at tackling racial injustice and police reforms promised to grow Saturday as more protesters filled streets around the world and mourners prepared to gather in the U.S. for a second memorial service for George Floyd, who died a dozen days ago at the hands of police in Minneapolis.

Formal and impromptu memorials to Floyd over the last several days have stretched from Minneapolis to Paris, Rome and Johannesburg, South Africa. In North Carolina, where he was born, a public viewing and private service for family was planned Saturday. Services were scheduled to culminate in a private burial in the coming days in Texas, where he lived most of his life.

Floyd’s final journey was designed with intention, the Rev. Al Sharpton said. Having left Houston for Minneapolis in 2014 in search of a job and a new life, Floyd is retracing that path in death.

Sharpton has plans for a commemorative march on Washington in August on the anniversary of the day Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963. He said the event would be a way to engage voters ahead of November’s general election and maintain momentum for a movement that has the power to “change the whole system of justice.”

“It’s going to be months, if not a year, before you even go to trial. So you can’t let this peter out,” he told The Associated Press in a phone interview late Friday. “Otherwise you’ll end up in a year and people will go on to another story, and you will not have the public notice and pressure that you need.”

In Washington, authorities were preparing for what on Saturday was expected to be the largest demonstration against police brutality in the city so far. It comes as authorities have sought to reduce tensions by having National Guard troops not carry weapons.

While demonstrations in the U.S. have shifted to a calmer tenor, protesters stirred by Floyd’s death are no less determined to turn an extraordinary outpouring of grief into change.

In Minneapolis, the city agreed to ban police chokeholds and require officers to intervene any time they see unauthorized force by another officer. The changes are part of a stipulation between the city and state officials who launched a civil rights investigation into Floyd’s death. The City Council was expected to approve the agreement, which will be enforceable in court.

Banning chokeholds is something Michigan activists want, too. They plan to lobby state lawmakers to take action, said Sam Riddle, political director of Michigan’s National Action Network, which has been organizing protests in and around Detroit.

’We get weary, but we are never worn out from seeking justice,” Riddle said in an email. “We will keep confronting systemic racism and injustice until perpetrators of the same change policies or we force them out and get policy changes that put people first.”

Protests across the country had initially been marred by the setting of fires and smashing of windows, but Friday marked the third day of more subdued demonstrations.

In Washington, city workers and volunteers painted “Black Lives Matter” in enormous yellow letters on the street leading to the White House on Friday in a sign of local leaders’ embrace of the protest movement. The mural stretched across 16th Street for two blocks, ending just before the church where President Donald Trump staged a photo-op earlier this week after federal officers forcibly cleared a peaceful demonstration to make way for him.

Meanwhile, in a sign protesters’ voices were being heard, more symbols of slavery and the Confederacy came down. Mobile, Alabama, removed a statue of a Confederate naval officer after days of protests there, while Fredericksburg, Virginia, removed a 176-year-old slave auction block after several years of efforts by the NAACP.

Rashad Robinson, president of Color Of Change, said Floyd’s final words breathed new life into a movement that has been building for generations.

“These high awareness moments though have the ability move us forward or backwards as a nation,” Robinson said. “It’s up to us to channel the the energy of the moment into sustainable, collective pressure for justice. To that end, we are working to use the momentum we have gained to create lasting, systemic change that will keep us safe long-term.”

Organizers in Florida and Minneapolis were using sign-up sheets to collect the names of those who want to stay involved and were encouraging simple actions such as sending emails or making calls to local elected leaders to demand change.

“We are taking more of the strategy of: ‘How do we actually invest people’s energy beyond protesting?’” said Tifanny Burks, a community organizer in Florida. “We are thinking long term.”

Nakia Wallace, an organizer in Detroit, said people were beginning to understand the movement’s power.

“The world is watching,” she said, adding: “The main strategy is to get people to collectively come out and make demands until those demands are met.”

Joseph Rogers has been out marching in Richmond, Virginia, nearly every night for the past week. As a descendant of slaves, he said he’s committed to a new racial justice movement that can spur change in his community and cities around the country. He said although the protests started as a reaction to the killing of Floyd, they are now about many more injustices.

“Every single black person in America has felt the pain of losing someone in the community to police brutality,” he said. “It’s not just about justice for George Floyd. It’s about justice for everyone who’s been lost, it’s about justice for all.”

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Williams reported from Detroit, Hajela from New York City and Morrison from Minneapolis. AP journalists Kelli Kennedy in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Jeff Baenen and Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis; Denise Lavoie in Richmond, Virginia; Jonathan Drew in Durham, North Carolina, and reporters around the U.S. contributed.

By NOMAAN MERCHANT, AMY FORLITI and TIM SULLIVAN

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Demonstrations across the U.S. to condemn racism and police abuses remained large but mostly without the violence of previous nights on the eve of a Thursday memorial service for George Floyd that kicks off a series of events to mourn the man whose death empowered a national movement.

The calmer protests followed a decision by prosecutors to charge three more police officers and file a new, tougher charge against the officer at the center of the case.

The most serious new charge Wednesday was an accusation of second-degree murder against Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin, who was caught on video pressing his knee to Floyd’s neck. The three other officers at the scene were charged for the first time with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

If convicted, they could be sentenced to up to four decades in prison.

The move punctuated an unprecedented week in modern American history, in which largely peaceful protests took place in communities of all sizes but were rocked by bouts of violence, including deadly attacks on officers, rampant thefts and arson in some places. In Minneapolis alone, more than 220 buildings were damaged or burned, with property damage topping $55 million, city officials said.

Nationwide, more than 10,000 people have been arrested in connection with unrest, an Associated Press tally shows. More than a dozen deaths have been reported, though the circumstances in many cases are still being sorted out.

Floyd’s name has become a rallying cry in other countries, too, unleashing protests against police violence and racial injustice.

In the U.S., protests were still big, but largely peaceful, and most police forces kept a mainly hands-off policy, even after curfews took effect. NBA stars Steph Curry and Klay Thompson marched with protesters in Oakland. The Duchess of Sussex, the former Meghan Markle, told high school graduates in Los Angeles in a virtual address that “the only wrong thing to say is to say nothing, because George Floyd’s life mattered.”

Some demonstrators lay down to represent the amount of time a white police officer pressed a knee into Floyd’s neck while he pleaded for air.

The first of three memorial gatherings for the man whose name has been chanted by hundreds of thousands of people was planned for Thursday afternoon in Minneapolis, with the Rev. Al Sharpton and family attorney Ben Crump speaking. Floyd’s body will then travel to Raeford, North Carolina, where he was born 46 years ago, for a public viewing and private family service Saturday.

And there will be a large service Monday in Houston, where Floyd spent most of his life. That will include addresses from Sharpton, Crump, and the Rev. Remus E. Wright, the family pastor. Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, may attend. A private burial will follow.

Crump called the additional charges against the officers “a bittersweet moment” and “a significant step forward on the road to justice.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, said Americans need to “seize the moment” and confront the effects of racism, including unequal educational and economic opportunities.

“I think this is probably our last shot, as a state and as a nation, to fix this systemic issue,” Walz said.

Hundreds of protesters were in New York City’s Washington Square Park when the charges were announced.

“It’s not enough,” protester Jonathan Roldan said, insisting all four officers should have been charged from the start. “Right now, we’re still marching because it’s not enough that they got arrested. There needs to be systematic change.”

The mood in New York turned somber later in the day after a police officer on an anti-looting patrol was ambushed by a man who walked up behind him and stabbed him in the neck. Two other officers suffered gunshot injuries to their hands in the struggle, and the attacker was in critical condition after being shot by police.

Chauvin was initially charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, counts that still stand.

The new second-degree murder charge alleges that Chauvin caused Floyd’s death without intent while committing another felony, namely third-degree assault. It carries a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison, compared with a maximum of 25 years for third-degree murder.

The other officers — Thomas Lane, J. Kueng and Tou Thao — face the same maximum penalties for aiding and abetting. All three were in custody by Wednesday evening. The multiple charges against each officer would offer a jury more options to find them guilty.

Also Wednesday, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office released the full autopsy report on Floyd, which noted he had previously tested positive for COVID-19 but was apparently asymptomatic. The report was released with the family’s permission. A summary had said Floyd had a heart attack while being restrained.

President Donald Trump has pushed the nation’s governors to take a hard line against the violence. He again tweeted Wednesday: “LAW & ORDER!”

An overpowering security force — including officers from the FBI Hostage Rescue Team, the Secret Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Prisons and, according to a senior defense official, at least 2,200 National Guard soldiers — was out in force Wednesday as thousands of peaceful protesters demonstrated in the nation’s capital.

Military vehicles were parked on streets near the White House. An FBI plane, an Army surveillance plane and a Park Police helicopter circled overhead.

At one point near the White House, protesters knelt and sang “Amazing Grace” amid officers in riot gear. “We are not going anywhere!” they chanted. There were no signs of confrontations.

Protester Jade Jones, 30, said the demonstrations would continue despite the new charges.

“That’s the least they could do,” Jones said. “It’s not going to wipe away 400 years of pain.”

In New York City, where high-end stores were looted in earlier days, some retailers fortified their property. Saks Fifth Avenue’s windows were boarded up, then covered in chain-link fencing and razor wire as a line of tattooed men with dogs stood guard out front.

When other black men were killed at the hands of U.S. police in recent years, the news reached global headlines, but not the streets. This time is different.

Silent protesters in front of the U.S. Embassy in Paris carried signs reading “We are all George Floyd” – in French. Protesters waved banners bearing his name from Johannesburg to London, Tel Aviv and Sydney, meanwhile calling attention to police violence, racial injustice or other problems closer to home.

“It’s a solidarity question. We stand with our brothers, internationally, our sisters as well, but the same thing is happening here. It’s no different,” Isaak Kabenge said in Stockholm.

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Nomaan Merchant reported from Houston. Associated Press journalists across the U.S. and the world contributed to this report.