Fri 05 June 2020:
A memorial service for George Floyd on Thursday at North Central University in Minneapolis was filled with love, hope and calls for sweeping change.
Hundreds of mourners in Minneapolis on Thursday remembered George Floyd, the black man whose death in police custody set off a wave of nationwide protests that reached the doors of the White House and ignited a debate about race and justice.
Family remembered Floyd’s 46 years of life.
Philonise Floyd, one of Floyd’s brothers, told a memorial service at a chapel in the Minnesota city’s North Central University that their family was poor and that he and George would wash their socks and clothes with soap in the sink and dry them in the oven because they did not have a dryer.
“It’s crazy man, all these people came to see my brother, it’s amazing he touched so many hearts,” said the brother, wearing a dark suit and a badge with a photo of his brother and the words “I can’t breathe” on his lapel.
Toward the end of the ceremony, Bishop Hezekiah Walker sang “Every Praise” and brought the attendees to their feet, with some joining hands and many clapping.
In opening remarks, Scott Hagan, president of North Central University, announced that a new scholarship would be named after Floyd.
He encouraged all university presidents to establish a scholarship in Floyd’s name to invest “like never before in a new generation of young black Americans who are poised and ready to take leadership of our nation.”
Floyd’s death on May 25 has become the latest flashpoint for rage over police brutality against African Americans, propelling the issue of race to the top of the political agenda ahead of the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 3.
Huge crowds have defied curfews and taken to the streets of cities across the country for nine nights in sometimes violent protests that prompted President Donald Trump to threaten to send in the military.
Ben Crump, a lawyer for Floyd’s family, told the memorial service that the police action that day was evil.
“What we saw in that video was evil. So America, as we proclaim as we memorialize George Floyd, do not accept evil. Protest against evil. We cannot cooperate with evil. We cannot cooperate with torture,” Crump said.
Prosecutors leveled new charges against four former Minneapolis police officers implicated in the killing on Wednesday.
The protests against Floyd’s killing came close to the White House on Monday night when baton-swinging police used heavy handed tactics to drive demonstrators away.
Trump has threatened to send U.S. troops to stamp out civil unrest against the wishes of state governors. That alarmed current and former military officials.
Trump’s former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, after long refusing to explicitly criticize his former boss, denounced any militarization of the response to protests. The U.S. military rarely clashes with the president.
“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try,” Mattis, who resigned as defense secretary in 2018, wrote in a statement published by The Atlantic.
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