People around the country gathered on Sunday, May 25 to remember George Floyd five years after he was killed by a Minneapolis police officer. Events were held throughout the weekend where people spoke in Floyd’s honor and also criticized what they said have been setbacks in combating police brutality and racism since his death.
In Houston, Texas, where Floyd grew up, the Rev. Al Sharpton said at a graveside service that Floyd represented those “who are defenseless against people who thought they could put their knee on our neck,” according to the Associated Press.
Floyd died in 2020 in Minnesota after police Officer Derek Chauvin pinned his knee to the pavement for 9 1/2 minutes even though he said “I can’t breathe.” Chauvin has since been convicted of Floyd’s murder and was sentenced to 22-and-a-half years in state prison. After Floyd’s death, protests against police brutality that called for reform were held across America.
Sharpton said Floyd was “for this time in history” like Emmett Till was for his time. Till was a 14-year-old Black child who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955.
Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, there were several events planned for Floyd near the intersection where he died, The Star-Tribune reported. That area is now known as George Floyd Square. These events included concerts, a street festival, a worship service and a candlight vigil. The theme for the Rise and Remember Festival this year was “the people have spoken.”
“Now is the time for the people to rise up and continue the good work we started,” Angela Harrelson, one of Floyd’s aunts and board co-chair of the Rise and Remember nonprofit, said in a statement, per the Star-Tribune.
Officials, advocates say there’s still work to be done
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in a statement that since Floyd’s killing, city officials have created “stronger oversight, overhauled our use of force policy” and changed how officers are trained.
“We owe that to George Floyd and his family, our Black and Brown neighbors, and to everyone who has felt the weight of injustice and demanded better,” Frey said.
However, Frey added that “the work is far from over.”
Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, said in a statement that “George Floyd should be alive today.”
“Five years later, we owe him more than thoughts and hashtags,” Crockett said. “His daughter said, ‘My daddy changed the world.’ Let’s stop failing her. Let’s stop failing him. Congress must pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.”
After Floyd died, a consent decree was reached with Minneapolis, but the Department of Justice under the Trump administration announced that it asked federal judges to dissolve it, as well as once with Louisville, Kentucky, where officers killed 26-year-old Breonna Taylor on March 13, 2020.
In addition, the department said it’s closing Biden-era investigations into the Louisiana State Police and law enforcement agencies in Memphis, Tennessee; Mount Vernon, New York; Oklahoma City; Phoenix, Arizona; and Trenton, New Jersey. Any published findings of misconduct by these agencies from the Biden administration will be retracted, the DOJ said.
On Sunday, May 25, the American Civil Liberties Union criticized this move as it reflected on Floyd’s murder.
“Despite progress made over the last few years, today the Trump administration is encouraging police brutality and dismantling oversight of police departments known to violate the Constitution. But we are not backing down,” the ACLU said in a statement.
Floyd remembered by family
Floyd’s sister LaTonya told People in a recent interview that she goes to her brother’s grave and sings REO Speedwagon’s “I’ll Keep on Loving You.” She also goes to Floyd’s statue in Houston to talk and pray with him.
“I lost my best friend,” she told the publication. “I love him so much.”
Added LaTonya Floyd: “It seems like it should get better, but it hurts more and more every time.”
“I tell him how we laughed together, how we sang together, how I’m going to keep on loving you,” she said. “All the fun stuff that family does, that they’re supposed to do, and we’re never going to be able to do again.”
Speaking to the Houston Chronicle for an article published on May 16, another sister, Zsa Zsa Floyd, recalled how he encouraged her daughter.
“His heart was huge,” Zsa Zsa Floyd said.
