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While smoke still billowed from buildings in Minneapolis and pepper spray choked the air from Los Angeles to New York, a movement to reshape policing coalesced around a demand conveyed in hashtags and spray paint.

“Defund the police” was a rallying cry and a policy prescription long before the killing of George Floyd ignited protests in all 50 states. But as the demonstrations continued, the once obscure idea gained support with the public and a number of city leaders.

As citizens across the country filled the streets to protest police killings of black people, the violent response from law enforcement has added urgency to a national conversation about police brutality. As cities look for what’s next, there is already a proven system of de-escalation for the high volume of mental health calls that police respond to, which often end in violence.

Many United Methodist clergy gave Pentecost Sunday sermons on the scourge of racism, prompted by the latest high-profile killing of a black man in police custody. But DeAndre Johnson may have outpreached and outreached them all by offering his own protest hymn, “It Is Enough!”

The video of Johnson singing for online worship at Christ Church Sugar Land, in Texas, had about 19,000 Face­book views as of June 2, with hundreds of shares.

A day after Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University in Virginia, tweeted an image of a face mask depicting figures in blackface and dressed as Klansmen, Christopher House, an online instructor for the university, announced his resignation on Facebook.

In the early evening on June 1, President Donald Trump stood before the historic St. John’s Episcopal Church in downtown Washington and held aloft a Bible for cameras.

The photo opportunity had an eerie quality: Trump said relatively little, positioned stoically in front of the boarded-up church, which had been damaged the day before in a fire during protests sparked by the death of George Floyd on May 25 in Minneapolis.

The church appeared to be completely abandoned.