FLOYD LAID TO REST, ANTI-RACISM PROTESTS CONTINUE ACROSS THE US
DAY OF RECKONING Rallies held from NYC to LA for the 16th day as Floyd’s brother pleads at a US Congress hearing to ‘stop the pain’
HOUSTON/ WASHINGTON: Protesters were back on the streets across the US on Wednesday after the funeral of George Floyd, whose death in police custody has ignited the biggest surge of antiracism activism since the civil rights era of the 1960s.
Hundreds of protesters in Seattle filled the City Hall on Wednesday, calling for the mayor to resign and for police reforms. More protests were scheduled in various cities, from Atlanta to New York City and Los Angeles, for a 16th straight day.
At Floyd’s funeral in Houston on Tuesday, veteran civil rights activist the Reverend Al Sharpton told mourners he was now “the cornerstone of a movement that is going to change the whole wide world”. The Floyd family would lead a march in Washington, DC on August 28 to mark the 57th anniversary of the 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech by civil rights icon Martin Luther King .
One day after burying his brother in Houston, Philonise Floyd appeared in person before a House hearing in Capitol Hill, where he described the pain of watching video of George “begging for his mom” as he lay dying.
“I’m here to ask you to make it stop. Stop the pain,” the younger Floyd said. “Please listen to the call I’m making to you now.”
Recalling that police was called on Floyd over an allegedly counterfeit $20 bill, his brother asked, “Is that what a black man’s life is worth? Twenty dollars? This is 2020. Enough is enough.”