WE’LL NEVER FORGET
A call to ‘change world,’ end ‘wickedness’ of racism at Floyd’s funeral
George Floyd’s funeral in Houston on Tuesday was a fitting farewell for the black man whose death in police custody fueled a turning point in America’s reckoning with racial injustice.
Family, friends and celebrities including actors Jamie Foxx and Channing Tatum packed the Fountain of Praise Church with heavy hearts, masks to guard against coronavirus and a resolve to gain justice and lasting change.
The Rev. Al Sharpton delivered a stirring eulogy after emotional speeches from relatives, a performance by singer Ne-Yo and a video message from Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee set to take on President Trump in the upcoming election.
“We know you will never feel the same again,” Biden told Floyd’s family in his recorded remarks.
“I’ve watched with awe as you summoned the absolute courage to channel God’s grace and show the good man George was, to stir justice too long dormant, to move millions to act peacefully and purposely,” Biden said.
Speaking to Floyd’s youngest daughter, Gianna, 6, Biden said he knows she has questions.
“No child should have to ask questions that too many black children have had to ask for generations: ‘Why? Why is daddy gone?’ ” he said.
America “has no choice but to do better,” he said.
“When there is justice for George Floyd, we will truly be on our way to racial justice in America. And then, as you said Gianna, your daddy will have changed the world,” Biden said.
Sharpton challenged mourners to go home and try kneeling on something for a full 8 minutes and 46 seconds, the length of time former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck in steely silence before Floyd died.
“You’ve got to be full of a lot of venom, full of something that really motivates you to press down your weight that long and not give out,” Sharpton said.
He said the “wickedness” of racism “in high places” fueled such behavior, from the criminal justice system to Trump’s White House.
“The president talks about
bringing in the military, but he did not say one word about the 8 minutes and 46 seconds of police murder of George Floyd,” Sharpton said.
Referencing the Scriptures, he said Floyd has become such a galvanizing figure precisely because he was “an ordinary brother from the Third Ward, from the housing projects that nobody thought much about.”
“God took the rejected stone and made him the cornerstone of a movement that’s going to change the whole wide world,” he said.
“The movement won’t rest until we get justice, until we have one standard of justice,” he said. “Your family is going to miss you, George, but your nation is going to always remember your name.”
After the funeral, Floyd’s body was taken by horsedrawn carriage to his final resting place next to his late mother, Larcenia Jones Floyd, the “mama” he called out for with his final breaths.
Floyd, 46, died May 25 in Minneapolis as bystanders shot graphic video of his last moments of life under Chauvin’s knee.
Chauvin didn’t relent until his captive, who was handcuffed and stomach-down on the street, stopped gasping for air and eventually stopped moving altogether.
Floyd repeatedly said, “I can’t breathe,” “Please,” and “mama” before he fell silent and was eventually loaded into an ambulance with no pulse.
“I’m about to die,” he said in a prophetic last protest, according to the complaints charging Chauvin and three other officers in the death.
Over the last two weeks, the public outcry over Floyd’s death has sparked movement on actions and ideas previously considered off the table.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner brought the funeral goers to their feet when he announced he will sign an executive order banning chokeholds in the city.
Thousands previously gathered for Floyd’s first memorial in Minneapolis last week, his second service in Raeford, N.C., near where he was born, and at a public viewing in Houston ahead of the private funeral.
Floyd’s brother Rodney Floyd, 36, said the senseless loss of his older sibling will not be in vain.
“Everybody is going to remember him around the world. He is going to change the world,” he said.