MINNEAPOLIS — Religious services, concerts and vigils are set to mark Sunday’s fifth anniversary of George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer even as police reform and civil rights activists face what they see as a backlash from the Trump administration.

Events in Minneapolis center around George Floyd Square, the intersection where police Officer Derek Chauvin used his knee to pin Floyd’s neck to the pavement for 9 1/2 minutes, even as the 46-year-old Black man’s cried “I can’t breathe.”

The events started Friday with concerts, a street festival and a “self-care fair,” and culminate with a worship service, gospel music concert and candlelight vigil on Sunday.

In Houston, where Floyd grew up, family members planned to gather Sunday at his gravesite for a memorial service led by the Rev. Al Sharpton. In a park about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) away, a memorial service will take place, followed by five hours of music, preaching and poetry readings and a balloon release.

The remembrances come at a fraught moment for activists, who had hoped the worldwide protests that followed Floyd’s murder on May 25, 2020, would lead to permanent police reform across the U.S. and a continued focus on racial justice issues.

Even with Minneapolis officials’ promises to remake the police department, some activists contend the progress has come at a glacial pace.

“We understand that change takes time,” Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality, said in a statement last week. “However, the progress being claimed by the city is not being felt in the streets.”

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

Trump also declared an end to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives within the federal government and his administration is using federal funds as leverage to force local governments, universities and public school districts to do the same. Republican-led states also have accelerated their efforts to stamp out DEI initiatives.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is delivering his first military commencement address since returning to office.

The Republican president is set to speak to West Point’s graduating class on Saturday morning.

Trump gave the commencement address at West Point in 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The president urged the graduating cadets to “never forget” the soldiers who fought a war over slavery during his remarks, which came as the nation was reckoning with its history on race after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Trump also paid tribute to the military academy’s history and its famed graduates, including Douglas MacArthur and Dwight D. Eisenhower. The ceremony five years ago drew scrutiny because the Military Academy forced the graduating cadets, who had been home because of COVID-19, to return to an area near a pandemic hot spot.

Trump traveled to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, earlier this month to speak to the University of Alabama’s graduating class. His remarks mixed standard commencement fare and advice with political attacks against predecessor Joe Biden, musings about transgender athletes and lies about the 2020 election.

On Friday, Vice President JD Vance spoke to the graduating class at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Vance said in his remarks that Trump is working to ensure U.S. soldiers are deployed with clear goals rather than the “undefined missions” and “open-ended conflicts” of the past.

___