George Floyd’s hears calls for racial justice in United States
The funeral of George Floyd held in a church in Houston, Texas recorded impassioned pleas for racial justice by the speakers. The death of African American sparked outrage and weeks-long protests across US and world.
Floyd a victim of hate crime received heartfelt tributes as people from different walks of life gathered to remember a man whose “crime was that he was born black.”
The black man aged 46 died in Minneapolis police custody last month when a when a white police officer kneeled on his throat during arrest, his final moments were recorded and the footage went viral after his death. Four police officers involved in the incident have been dismissed from the service and charged for the murder. The coffin of Mr. Floyd was driven to the Houston Memorial Gardens in a motorcade where he would lay beside the grave of his mother.
One of Mr. Floyd nieces, Brook Williams appealed for a changed in laws which she believed are designed to systematic abuse of black community.
“Why must this system be corrupt and broken?” she asked. “Laws were already put in place for the African-American system to fail. And these laws need to be changed. No more hate crimes, please! Someone said ‘Make America Great Again’, but when has America ever been great?”
Presumptive Presidential nominee, Joe Biden, addressed the funeral through a video message, saying: “When there is justice for George Floyd, we will truly be on our way to racial justice in America.”
President Trump’s Democratic opponent didn’t come short of criticizing him at the weekend. Biden accused his political rival for issuing despicable speculative remarks about the deceased black man but was also himself blamed for taking black American votes for granted after he passed controversial remarks about the community in a recent interview.
Funeral
Floyd’s family at his funeral service
The service was organized at the Fountain of Praise church and had some 500 attendees including celebrities and politicians.
“George Floyd was not expendable – this is why we’re here,” said Al Green, the local Democratic congressman. “His crime was that he was born black.”
Reverend Al Sharpton among the guests at the service said: “All over the world I see grandchildren of slave masters tearing down slave masters’ statues.”
Pouring tribute to the Floyd, he said: “God took the rejected stone and made him the cornerstone of a movement that’s gonna change the whole wide world.”
In Minnesota, the Governor Tim Walz and people observed a silence of 8 minutes and 46 seconds.
Biden
After paying visit to the family house of the deceased man on Monday, the Democratic Presidential candidate told CBS: “His little daughter was there, the one who said “daddy’s going to change the world’, and I think her daddy is going to change the world.”
“I think what happened here is one of the great inflection points in American history, for real, in terms of civil liberties, civil rights and just treating people with dignity.”
