USA TODAY International Edition
‘ He created a movement’
Thousands pay respects at public viewing.
HOUSTON – Mourners, including hundreds who had arrived hours early, streamed past George Floyd’s open casket at the Fountain of Praise church Monday to pay their respects to a man whose death sparked a national movement.
Staying about six feet apart and wearing face coverings, they walked in two rows down the church’s central aisle.
Stopping briefly before Floyd, some knelt, several nodded a greeting and many bowed their heads before stepping aside.
One woman clutched her heart before turning away. Several men raised a fist.
The viewing offered a solemn and moving moment, several said afterward.
“I looked at him and I was sad for him because I have sons, too,” said Eileen Holder, 80, of Houston. “I have four lovely sons, and I said to myself, it could have been one of them.”
Jessica and Ricardo Mondragon left Austin, Texas, with their 6- year- old son Lionel at 5 a. m. because they wanted to honor Floyd.
“He created a movement now, and everyone has to come together to show that police brutality is not right,” Jessica Mondragon said. “We all need to come together and be as one community, and we have a common enemy ... police brutality.”
The church doors opened early as the heat rose on a sunny day, and long lines also extended at two remote lots where crowds were asked to gather before being shuttled to the church.
Among the several thousand who paid respects Monday was Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who bowed his head for more than a minute before Floyd’s golden casket shortly before noon.
“Today is a sad day. Ever since his death has been a sad day,” Abbott said afterward, adding that he was preparing to meet privately with members of Floyd’s family.
Floyd’s body was returned to his hometown Saturday, and Monday’s public viewing will be followed by a funeral at the same church on Tuesday.
Floyd, who grew up in Houston’s Third Ward, will be buried alongside his mother at Houston Memorial Gardens in Pearland.
Marcus Brooks and Anthony Joubert, like Floyd, attended Jack Yates High School in Houston.
“We’re paying our respects, but there’s no respect for the black man,” Brooks said. “The only way it’s going to change is for people to change.”
Floyd’s death under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer riveted the public’s attention on something they’ve known and experienced all their lives, the men said.
“The kids are worried about whether they’ll be the next George Floyd,” Brooks said. “I’m worried about being the next George Floyd.”
Also lined up in the shade of a bank of trees was Charlene Rosette, who drove in from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and said her emotions jumped from anger to sadness and, finally, to optimism.
“It took George Floyd to die on camera,” said Rosette 55. “But George Floyd changed the world. It’s not going to change overnight because this didn’t start overnight. But though all this, I see hearts changing. I really do.”
Cellphone video showed police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes as Floyd lay handcuffed on a Minneapolis street, fearfully saying he couldn’t breathe. Chauvin’s knee remained in place after Floyd lost consciousness and after paramedics arrived, sparking a wave of national outrage and protests against police brutality and treatment of minorities.
Chauvin, who is white, and three nearby officers were fired, then criminally charged in Floyd’s death.
James Teal, a deacon at the Fountain of Praise, lived through the unrest of the 1960s. That, he said, was when America should have met the challenge of racism head- on.
“We didn’t heal the problem then, and now the problem is right now,” said Teal, 72, who greeted mourners as they filed in to the church. “This police brutality has to come to an end.”
Solving it now, he said, will require the opening of hearts and of minds.
“None of us ( is) better than anyone else,” Teal said. “God made us all.”