‘He is going to change the world’
Floyd remembered at fiery funeral
Now is the time for racial justice. That’s the answer we must give to our children when they ask why.
Former vice president Joe Biden
George Floyd was fondly remembered as “Big Floyd” — a father and brother, athlete and neighbourhood mentor, and now a catalyst for change — at a funeral for the black man whose death has sparked a global reckoning over police brutality and racial prejudice.
More than 500 mourners packed a Houston church a little more than two weeks after Floyd, 46, was pinned to the pavement by a white Minneapolis police officer who put a knee on his neck for what prosecutors said was 8 minutes and 46 seconds.
Cellphone video of the encounter, including Floyd’s pleas of “I can’t breathe”, ignited protests and scattered violence across the US and around the world, turning Floyd — a man who in life was little known beyond the public housing project where he was raised in Houston’s Third Ward — into a worldwide symbol of injustice.
“Third Ward, Cuney Homes, that’s where he was born,” Floyd’s brother, Rodney, told mourners at the Fountain of Praise church.
“But everybody is going to remember him around the world. He is going to change the world.”
The funeral capped six days of mourning for Floyd in Raeford,
North Carolina, near where he was born; Houston, where he grew up; and Minneapolis, where he died. The memorials have drawn the families of other black victims whose names have become familiar in the debate over race and justice — among them, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Ahmaud Arbery and Trayvon Martin.
Dozens of Floyd’s family members took part in the four-hour service. The mourners included Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, who brought the crowd to its feet when he announced an executive order banning chokeholds in the city.
“I know you have a lot of questions that no child should have to ask, questions that too many black children have had to ask for generations: why? Why is Daddy gone?” former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential candidate, said, addressing Floyd’s 6-year-old daughter in a video eulogy played at the service.
“Now is the time for racial justice. That’s the answer we must give to our children when they ask why.”
Biden made no mention of his opponent in the November election. But other speakers took swipes at President Donald Trump, who has ignored demands to address racial bias and has called on state authorities to crack down hard on lawlessness.
“The President talks about bringing in the military, but he did not say one word about 8 minutes and 46 seconds of police murder of George Floyd,” said Reverend Al Sharpton, a civil rights activist.