Mourners gather with family of George Floyd
Funeral caps series of services across nation
HOUSTON – George Floyd was lovingly remembered Tuesday as “Big Floyd” – a father and brother, athlete and neighborhood 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 wearing masks against the coronavirus packed a Houston church a little more than two weeks after Floyd 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 U.S. and around the world, turning the 46-year-old 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 at,” 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 three cities: 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.
Following the service, Floyd’s golden casket was taken by hearse toward the cemetery in the Houston suburb of Pearland where he was to be entombed next to his mother, for whom he cried out as he lay dying. A horse-drawn carriage was to carry his body the last mile to the graveyard.
Hundreds of people lined the route in the mid-90s heat.
“We’re out here for a purpose. That purpose is because first of all he’s our brother. Second, we want to see change,” said Marcus Brooks, 47, who set up a tent with other graduates of Jack Yates High School, Floyd’s alma mater. “I don’t want to see any black man, any man, but most definitely not a black man sitting on the ground in the hands of bad police.”
Dozens of Floyd’s family members, most dressed in white, took part in the four-hour service. Grammy-winning singer Ne-yo was among those who sang during the ceremony.
The mourners also included actors Jamie Foxx and Channing Tatum, J.J. Watt of the NFL’S Houston Texans, rapper Trae tha Truth, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, who brought the crowd to its feet when he announced he will sign an executive order banning chokeholds in the city.