Floyd’s final farewell
Hundreds mourn man who died in police custody
HOUSTON — George Floyd, whose death in police custody roused worldwide protests against racism, was extolled at his funeral by religious and political leaders, family and friends Tuesday in his hometown of Houston.
“This is a home-going celebration,” Rev. Mia Wright, co-pastor at the Fountain of Praise Church, told mourners. Banners featured pop art illustrations of Floyd wearing a baseball cap with a halo above it.
American flags lined the streets outside the church. Flowers and bouquets were placed around a photograph of Floyd.
Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, spoke via a video recording.
“Why in this nation do too many black Americans wake up knowing that they could lose their life in the course of just living their life?” Biden said. “We must not turn away. We cannot leave this moment thinking we can once again turn away from racism.”
After the service, a funeral procession was due to travel about 24 km to Houston Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Pearland, Texas.
His body was to travel in a horse-drawn carriage for burial alongside his mother.
Floyd, 46, died May 25 after a white police officer in Minneapolis pinned him with a knee to the neck for nearly nine minutes. A bystander’s video captured the incident in excruciating detail, including Floyd saying “I can’t breathe” and crying out for his mother.
“It was the worst thing I ever could have imagined, watching him going from speaking and breathing to turning blue,” said Godfrey Johnson, 45, as he arrived at the church. Johnson, who wore an “I can’t breathe”
T-shirt, attended Floyd’s high school and played football with him.
About 500 people were invited to the funeral, which followed memorial services last week in Minneapolis and Raeford, N.C., where Floyd was born. Advised to guard against the coronavirus by wearing masks, some mourners and onlookers wore ones that said “I can’t breathe.”
Family members of other Black men killed in confrontations with white men attended.
The mother of Eric Garner, a New York man who died in a police chokehold, was at the church, as was the family of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-yearold Georgia man who was shot and killed in February while jogging.
Floyd’s death ignited a wave of protests around the world against racism and the systematic mistreatment of black people.