USA TODAY International Edition
In Houston, Floyd changed lives
Private funeral is today in his childhood hometown
HOUSTON – Before his death made him a catalyst for global protests, George Floyd mentored young men at the Cuney Homes housing project in Houston’s Third Ward, urging them to quit violence and seek a better life.
When Tiffany Cofield, then a teacher at Hope Academy charter school in the Third Ward, struggled to connect with her most troubled students, she turned to Floyd for help. Floyd, who was 40 at the time, was disarmingly soft- spoken and listened to Cofield’s complaints and aspirations for the kids, she said.
More importantly, her students listened to Floyd. One boy was a talented football player struggling to keep his grades up. After Cofield recruited Floyd to talk to him, the student’s grades suddenly improved. He graduated high school and went on to play football at a junior college, Cofield said.
“There were times he had more of an impact than their own parents,” she said of Floyd’s relationship with her students. “They didn’t want to disappoint him.”
“There were times he had more of an impact than their own parents. They didn’t want to disappoint him.” Tiffany Cofield, former charter school teacher, on Floyd's mentoring relationship with her students
Memorials are planned in Houston this week for Floyd, 46, who died while in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25. The former police officer who pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes during the arrest was arrested and charged with seconddegree murder, and three other officers on the scene were charged with aiding and abetting second- degree murder.
Outrage over Floyd’s death unleashed worldwide demonstrations, including mostly peaceful protests in every state in the USA. Last week, memorials were held in Minneapolis, where Floyd last lived, and North Carolina, where he was born.
Monday, Houston hosted a six- hour public visitation. Today, a private funeral service is planned. Floyd is to be buried alongside his mother at Houston Memorial Gardens in Pearland. Al Sharpton is to deliver the eulogy.
To his friends in his childhood hometown of Houston, Floyd was remembered as a musician, a former student athlete and a loving brother and father.
“He was Third Ward,” Cofield said. South of downtown Houston, the Third Ward has been home to freed slaves since the end of the Civil War and site of important landmarks such as Jack Yates Senior High School, the city’s second African American high school, and Emancipation Park, the first park for black Houstonians.
Floyd grew up in the neighborhood’s Cuney Homes, also known as “The Bricks,” a housing project flushed with gang violence and crime. Known as “Big Floyd,” he put out rap mix tapes with the influential hip hop collective Screwed Up Click in the 1990s and was a standout athlete at Jack Yates High School. By the time he left high school, he was 6 feet, 6 inches tall and weighed more than 200 pounds. He was known as someone who used his formidable size to break up fights.
Monday, residents and bystanders flocked to a mural of Floyd spread across the back wall of the Scott Food Store, across the street from the Cuney Homes. Some dropped balloons or lit religious candles. Others took selfies or dropped roses, their stems crammed into plastic water bottles.
Eva Fulghum, 37, touched Floyd’s likeness, made the sign of the cross, then wiped his face with a small red towel. “Wiping his tears,” she said.
Fulghum said she grew up with Floyd and knew him and his mother well. She said she hopes people will celebrate Floyd as much as mourn him.
“I don’t want people to grieve,”
“God does a lot of things, but he doesn’t do mistakes. He had a mission for my brother.” ZsaZsa Floyd, George Floyd’s older sister
Fulghum said.
Bevan Walker, 50, was bicycling through Houston’s Third Ward Monday morning when he stopped at the mural on Nalle Street. He snapped a photo of it with his phone.
“There’s something special about his life and his family,” Walker said. “His name is going to be synonymous with justice for generations to come.”
An adjoining wall was filled with more than 200 names of people who have died in Houston’s Third Ward, many of them because of street violence.
Kim Hewitt, 45, was among those gathered at the mural. She said it’s important to memorialize Floyd, but she hoped the international spotlight shining on Houston this week also reveals the scourge of violence taking so many lives in inner cities.
“We have a lot of work to do,” she said. Those close to Floyd turned to their personal memories of his time in Houston. ZsaZsa Floyd, his older sister, remembers Floyd rushing home after his first day at Yates High. As a ninth grader, he made the varsity football team, a squad stacked with some of the best players in the city. A year later, he would co- captain the basketball team, she said.
“He came home yelling, ‘ I made it made it! I made varsity!’ “ZsaZsa said. “He was so excited. His face just lit up.”
Floyd also delved into his spiritual side, attending church and spreading the gospel, she said. As a young man, he would drop to his knees in the middle of a grocery store, giving glory to God, Zsa Zsa said. “He had a good spirit,” she said.
ZsaZsa said she can’t believe she’ll never hear her brother’s voice or bellowing laugh again but trusts he died for a reason.
“God does a lot of things, but he doesn’t do mistakes,” she said. “He had a mission for my brother.”
Floyd had several brushes with the law. Starting in 1997, he was arrested on various drug and theft charges, according to Harris County District Court records. In 2009, he went to state prison after pleading guilty to charges of armed aggravated robbery. When he was released in 2013, he returned to the Third Ward, determined to steer youth away from the same decisions that stole so many years from him.
Chris Johnson, a minister at Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church, got to know Floyd while hosting twice- a- week outreach programs at Cuney Homes in 2013. Floyd showed up to the meetings every Tuesday and Wednesday at the housing project’s community center and helped Johnson connect with the youth.
Floyd had the double- barrel street cred of being a former student athlete and budding rap artist who rubbed elbows with homegrown artists such as Cal Wayne and Trae tha Truth, Johnson said.
“Just having his presence there really helped solidify things in the neighborhood,” he said. “He helped a lot of conflicted and confused people.”
Floyd felt he needed to leave Houston and get a fresh start, Cofield said. He found it when he learned of a minister who was helping troubled Third Ward residents relocate to Minneapolis. He made the move.
Floyd reveled in his new surroundings. He hung out with Houston friends who had relocated to Minneapolis. He liked how nice people were and enjoyed the pro sports teams the Twin Cities offered, Cofield said.
“He liked Minnesota because it was an opportunity to start over,” she said. “He kept telling me, ‘ You have to come out to Minnesota to visit.’ “
Cofield said she hopes people reflect this week on the “gentle giant” that Floyd was and remember he was a brother, dad and friend to many people. Floyd left behind a daughter, Gianna, 6.
One of his dreams, Cofield said, was rereleasing rap tapes he recorded in the 1990s, maybe recruiting some popular rappers to join him. Floyd reminded Cofield – or, “Stiff,” as he called her – of this aspiration during a chat in June 2018.
His goal wasn’t just monetary – he wanted to influence the younger generation with a message of steering away from violence and bettering their lives, Cofield said.
“He looked at me and said, ‘ Man, Stiff, I’m going to change the world,’ ” she said. “I didn’t know he meant that literally.”
Wayne, one of the Third Ward’s bestknown rappers, was Floyd’s next door neighbor growing up in the Cuney Homes. When Wayne was 12, his mom went to prison and he moved in with Floyd and his mother, sparking a lifelong friendship.
Floyd became Wayne’s earliest supporter, encouraging him to keep rapping and recording. When Wayne landed in prison in 2014 on drug charges, Floyd visited him frequently, urging him to stay humble and retrieving a $ 20,000 advance owed Wayne from an independent Houston label.
“He really helped me get through it,” said Wayne, who will be one of Floyd’s pallbearers during Houston services this week. “I wish the world knew him the way I knew him.”