George Floyd's brother leads moment of silence at DNC
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The family of George Floyd appeared during Monday’s Democratic National Convention to lead a virtual moment of silence in memory of the unarmed Black man whose death sparked protests over racial injustice and police brutality.
“My brother George was selfless,” Philonise Floyd said from the Floyd family home in Houston, alongside another brother, Rodney Floyd. “He always made sacrifices for his family, friends and even complete strangers. George had a giving spirit. A spirit that has shown up on streets around our nation and around the world. People of all races, all ages, all genders, all backgrounds, peacefully protesting in the name of love and unity.”
“It’s a fitting legacy for our brother, for George should be alive today,” he continued, before naming other African-Americans who died at the hands of white assailants or police officers. “Breonna Taylor should be alive today. Ahmaud Arbery should be alive today. Eric Garner should be alive today. Stephon Clark or Atatiana Jefferson, Sandra Bland, they should all be alive today. So it’s up to us to carry on the fight for justice. Our actions will be their legacies.”
“We must always find ourselves in what John Lewis called ‘good trouble,’” Philonise Floyd added. “For the names we do not know, the faces we will never see, those who can’t mourn because their murders didn’t go viral. Please join me in a moment of silence to honor George and the many other souls we lost to hate and injustice, and when this moment ends, let’s make sure we never stop saying their names.”
Floyd, 46, died on May 25 after being pinned to the ground by Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis officer who was seen in a video kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes. Chauvin was charged with second-degree murder.
After the killing, former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, traveled to Houston to meet privately with Floyd’s family and recorded a video message that was played at his funeral.
President Trump spoke with the family by phone but did not attend the service. He denounced Floyd’s killing but also criticized the protests that followed, casting Black Lives Matter demonstrators as violent and calling on cities such as Minneapolis to use force against them.
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