‘I Want To Touch the World’

[0] My name is Jonathan Veal.

[1] I have known George Floyd since the sixth grade at James D. Ryan Middle School, and the community of third ward, which is located in Houston, Texas.

[2] The first day I saw him, I was in the cafeteria, and he came in, and I was just blown away by his height.

[3] He was 6 '2, and I was just in awe, just like, wow, that's a tall guy.

[4] and he was just tall and skinny.

[5] I mean, this guy is in the sixth grade, and that was the beginning of our relationship.

[6] I remember it was the last day of school on our junior year, and there was this place just north of our school, maybe three blocks, that we called the Hill.

[7] And we would just kind of go there just to hang out, and for some reason, the conversation shifted to like, okay, we're about to graduate.

[8] like it was like we're no longer going to be like teenagers anymore so i know i talked about just want to get married and george talked about college and all of a sudden he made this statement and says man i want to be big i want to touch the world most of us had not seen the world outside of you know third ward or the houston community so it's just like oh wow okay he was just a fond person to be around like it was never adult A moment.

[9] Never a dull moment.

[10] Me and Big George used to go to school all the time and, you know, get out and listen to music and, you know, and talk about, you know, about the music world and how we want to do this and do that and just, you know, be successful.

[11] You know, we was young.

[12] Just kids, we were still trying to figure this thing out, you know.

[13] You know, it's when you're in a 20s, you're in the 20s, when you're trying to figure out, you're trying to really see what direction you're going in, just waking up and just trying to figure it out.

[14] I met Floyd seven to 10 years ago while I was trying to plant a church resurrection Houston's ministry in the middle of Third Ward, Houston, Texas, in the county home's housing project.

[15] And say, I go to a neighborhood, I can knock on 50 doors.

[16] 50 people may come out.

[17] Floyd comes out the door, 100 people come out.

[18] Everybody knows him.

[19] He's connected.

[20] Man, just to see his impact was amazing.

[21] his road to redemption, and then how God used him in this season, in this moment.

[22] As soon as he comes in a dope, he asks you, are you good?

[23] You all right?

[24] Always.

[25] And he would say, he always said things twice sometimes.

[26] Like, he always called me Al -Aul, and he called Teresa Titi.

[27] He just, that's just him.

[28] He just like, every time we cooked him, a meal, get him a plate, he comes down rubbing his tummy, he's good, thank you, thank you, thank you.

[29] You know what I mean?

[30] And he always said this.

[31] For the whole time that Teresa and me and him live here together, he always will tell us, I want y 'all to know I appreciate you.

[32] He always would tell us that.

[33] After I learned that this was my friend, just the flood of emotions came about.

[34] I didn't sleep, you know, the next couple of nights just think about what happened.

[35] And then that's when it became global.

[36] And then I'm like, wow, it's literally happening.

[37] He's touching the world.

[38] He's touching the world.

[39] It's just like, wow.

[40] From the New York Times, I'm Caitlin Dickerson.

[41] This is the Daily.

[42] Today.

[43] George Floyd's funeral.

[44] My colleague, Manny Fernandez, was in Houston.

[45] It's Wednesday.

[46] June 10th.

[47] Hey, Manny.

[48] It's Caitlin.

[49] How you doing?

[50] I'm okay.

[51] How are you and where are you?

[52] I am in the parking lot of the Fountain of Praise Church in southwest Houston where George Floyd's funeral was just held.

[53] And what was today about?

[54] So today was about two different things.

[55] And you saw this during the service itself, and then I got this sense from talking to people outside.

[56] On the one hand, there's a lot of people who wanted to talk about George Floyd as a symbol of a movement and George Floyd's death not being in vain.

[57] And yet, on the other hand, a lot of people were trying to say, like, hold on, wait, let's talk about him as a man. And let's kind of talk about the jokes he used to crack and the pranks he used to pull and what he was like, you know, and the projects of Houston where he's from.

[58] And so I think that there was that two -sided story that you kind of heard today.

[59] Let's remember the man who's become this symbol and let's also just remember the man himself.

[60] And this is a familiar dynamic for you, right?

[61] I mean, you've covered funerals for other people.

[62] who've died at the hands of police and you've seen this dynamic before.

[63] Yeah, absolutely.

[64] It reminded me of 2014 with Michael Brown's funeral when people gather around and they say, give us a little bit of space in this social justice movement that's popping up around this person's death.

[65] Give us like a few hours in a day to talk about them and their flaws, right, and to sort of talk about them as a full human before their life becomes more myth than reality.

[66] And I think that, you know, the people here at the funeral try to sort of, you know, hold on to that space as long as they can before the train has left the station.

[67] Mm -hmm.

[68] And you heard some of that today, but you've also been reporting for the last few weeks on George Floyd, who he was.

[69] So what have you learned about his life?

[70] I spent a lot of time at the place where he's from.

[71] And he's from a place called The Bricks.

[72] And the Bricks are a nickname for the CUNY Homes Public Housing Project in Houston.

[73] And he grew up in the CUNY Homes in the 80s, in the 90s, in the early 2000s.

[74] And it's a hard world.

[75] But by all account, he's a pretty happy kid.

[76] George's mother was sort of a matron of the Cunia Homes.

[77] She was raising her kids.

[78] She was raising George.

[79] At the same time, she started raising her own grandchildren for a time, and she started raising some of the neighbor's children.

[80] And she fed them.

[81] They spent the night at her apartment.

[82] And that's who Mississippi was.

[83] That's who George Floyd's mother was, a mother to a lot of CUNY homes.

[84] So what happens once George moves into high school and then adulthood?

[85] So George Floyd goes to high school just down the street from CUNY Holmes.

[86] He goes to Jackie Hates High School.

[87] He's a big kid.

[88] You know, eventually he grows to 6 '6.

[89] and he's kind of immediately becomes a star basketball player and a star football player.

[90] He helps take the football team to state championships in 1992 and he is so good that he gets a basketball scholarship to go to college in South Florida.

[91] And he goes there and he plays a little bit of basketball.

[92] It doesn't work out.

[93] He transfers back to Texas.

[94] He goes to the Kingsville campus.

[95] of Texas A &M University, and he goes there for a couple years.

[96] Meanwhile, he's going back and forth to Houston, back and forth to the Third Ward.

[97] And as he's doing that, he meets this legendary producer named DJ Screw, who eventually becomes sort of a legend in Houston rap circle.

[98] And there was a time in the early 90s when DJ Screw made a bunch of Mick.

[99] tapes.

[100] And DJ Screw is rapping on these tapes, but he also invites other rappers to come in.

[101] And a lot of these rappers are just like kids from the neighborhood.

[102] While George Floyd is one of those guys rapping on DJ's mixtapes.

[103] And he calls himself Big Floyd.

[104] And he calls himself Big Floyd.

[105] And then meanwhile, he's still in college, he's going to take out of Texas.

[106] And then meanwhile, he's still in college, he's going to Texas A &M Kingsville.

[107] And it doesn't work out.

[108] He pulls out of Texas A &M.

[109] He never gets his degree.

[110] And he goes back to Keeney Holmes.

[111] And, and he, That's when his life sort of takes another turn.

[112] And it's in 1997 that he gets his first run in with law enforcement.

[113] And so, you know, for about a decade of his life, from the age of 23 and 1997 to when he was 34 in 2008, he had a string of arrest in Houston.

[114] Some of the arrests were felonies.

[115] Some of them were misdemeanors.

[116] he was arrested for drugs and for robbery and a few other charges.

[117] His most serious case comes in 2008.

[118] He's arrested for his role in a home invasion robbery, according to court documents.

[119] And so he pleads guilty to aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon.

[120] He's sentenced to five years in state prison.

[121] He only serves four years, and he's released in 2013.

[122] And after he's released from prison, you know, he really starts to turn his life around.

[123] He becomes more religious.

[124] George Floyd has a daughter who's born around that time after he gets out of prison.

[125] And it turns out what we learned at the funeral is that he actually had five children and two grandchildren.

[126] And he starts reconnecting with his kids.

[127] He starts speaking out about and against the children.

[128] gun violence and he becomes this almost this like unofficial community leader back in the community homes back in third ward and he has a lot of respect out there and then eventually he gets plugged into this program that will eventually take him to Minneapolis we've been criticized for not writing about and publicizing more the details of his criminal history I think some people have this world view where if you're an ex -con, then you're an ex -con and that's all you ever be in your life.

[129] And the people in the Keeney homes, a lot of them have run -ins with law enforcement.

[130] But, you know, your life moves on after that and people change.

[131] And so I think, you know, it's sort of a balance to try to write about the totality of somebody's life, the good and the bad and try to do that in a way that honors the memory of a person whose reason for being in the news has to do with him being a victim of a crime and not the perpetrator of one.

[132] So tell me about George Floyd's final years in his final chapter.

[133] You know, he has a pretty quiet life in Minneapolis.

[134] He's living with roommates.

[135] He's working as a security guard at a nightclub.

[136] He has a girlfriend.

[137] He's still very religious, reading the Bible.

[138] And he has this sort of quiet life.

[139] You know, he called it his new chapter in Minneapolis.

[140] The people who knew him here in Houston say they thought he was pretty happy out there.

[141] We'll be right back.

[142] So that's George Floyd the person.

[143] And like you said, there's also George Floyd, the symbol and the beginning of a movement.

[144] So how did those two ideas of him play out during his funeral today?

[145] Yeah.

[146] So the funeral is at a church in Houston called the fountain of praise.

[147] And the media wasn't allowed inside.

[148] And so I spent most of the day outside talking to people.

[149] Pastor Wright, we want to bring greetings to everyone who is within the sanctuary walls, as well as those who are watching via stream or in some platform today.

[150] But it was live streamed.

[151] In the tradition of the African American church, this will be a homegoing celebration.

[152] Come on, I want to say it again.

[153] This will be a homegoing celebration of Brother George Floyd tonight.

[154] And here you had, you know, a number of elected officials, including many of the African -American political leaders in Houston and in Texas.

[155] Let me just speak briefly say, let me, on behalf of the city of Houston.

[156] Mayor Turner of Houston spoke.

[157] As I speak right now, the city attorney is drafting an executive order and said that we will bear.

[158] choke holes and strangle holes.

[159] He wants to ban choke holes in the Houston Police Department.

[160] And I have a resolution that would be presented to the family.

[161] You had Congressman Al Green come up.

[162] This resolution is going to say to those who look through the vista of time that at this time there lived one among us who was a child of God who was taken untimely, but we're going to make sure that those who looked through time, that they will know that he made a difference within his time because he changed not only this country, not only the United States, he changed the world.

[163] George Floyd changed the world.

[164] And also...

[165] Hello, everyone, on this day of prayer where we tried to understand God's plan in our pain.

[166] Joe Biden made a video message.

[167] Now is the time for racial justice.

[168] That's the answer we must give to our children when they ask why.

[169] because when there is justice for George Floyd we will truly be on our way to racial justice in America and they all sort of talked about and told the family that his death would not be in vain God bless you all God bless you all I want to ask the members of the family who are going to come up and speak at this time if you would please make your way to the stage and then after the first half of the funeral is sort of taken up by politicians.

[170] Welcome, everyone.

[171] I am George Floyd's aunt.

[172] I just want to thank everybody, and I would like to thank the whole world what it has done for my family today.

[173] The family sort of takes over.

[174] But I just want to make this statement.

[175] The world knows George Floyd.

[176] I know Perry Jr., He was a pesky little rascal, but we all loved him.

[177] And they sort of physically take over, and they're up there as a group.

[178] I just want to say that I'm going to miss my brother a whole lot.

[179] And I love, I just want to say to him, I love you.

[180] And I thank God for it, give him, I love you.

[181] And I thank God for it giving me my own personal Superman.

[182] I bless you all.

[183] And they start talking about their brother and their uncle.

[184] Hello, my name is Brooke Williams, George Floyd's niece, and I can breathe.

[185] Long as I'm breathing, justice will be served for a pair.

[186] First off, I want to thank all of you for coming out to support George Perry Floyd.

[187] My uncle was a father, brother, uncle, and a cousin to me. spiritually grounded and activist he always moved people with his words you know and it becomes very powerful to hear them talk in a very intimate way about their relative my most favorite memory when my uncle was when he played when he's paid me to scratch his head at the long days of work we here out at home we even create a song about it called scratch my head scratch my head yeah But after that, I knew he was a comedian.

[188] He always told me, baby girl, you're going to go so far with that beautiful smile and brains of yours.

[189] Well, then fast forward to 1998, I started a college exhibition tour team touring around the country, going to play different colleges and exhibition games.

[190] And Big Floyd, that was my first power forward.

[191] I would be calling around trying to get contracts with the different schools, and the coaches would ask me, who's your big man?

[192] I would say George Floyd.

[193] Oh, you got Big Floyd.

[194] Okay, well, your team must be pretty good.

[195] And so then we would go off and play.

[196] You know, and it was those little moments and those little anecdotes that really, I think, help people get a sense of who George was.

[197] Everybody know what Big Florida is now.

[198] Third Ward, Cunning Home.

[199] As the family spoke.

[200] From the Cuny Home to Jack Yakes High.

[201] You know, you really heard.

[202] Third Ward and the Cuny Homes to come in.

[203] join me. This sort of Third Ward pride come up.

[204] In Third Ward, Cudan, home, Texas.

[205] You know, very historic black elected officials live there.

[206] It's home to the only black -owned banking institution in Texas.

[207] Beyonce is from the Third Ward.

[208] It's just a place of a lot of black pride and a lot of black history.

[209] At the same time, it's also a place of a lot of struggle.

[210] and a lot of poverty.

[211] And there's a real strong sense that George Floyd is from this place that is a hard fought and very proud place.

[212] And the direction of senior pastor, Pastor Rima's right.

[213] And then my privilege and my honor today.

[214] You have the final eulogy.

[215] A man who needs no introduction, but deserves one.

[216] delivered by the Reverend Al Sharpton.

[217] Al Sharpton.

[218] And he appears he's standing there in a black and white preacher's robe.

[219] I hear people talk about what happened to George Floyd, like there was some thing less than a crime.

[220] This was not just a tragedy.

[221] It was a crime.

[222] And to me, there was just one moment early on.

[223] You know, he's standing up there, and then he puts his glasses on, and he starts reading from this list.

[224] I give him recognition.

[225] I must also recognize several families are here, as if he's going to thank some of the different people.

[226] And he starts talking about some of the people who are there, and he says, The mother of Trayvon Martin, will you stand?

[227] The mother of Trayvon Martin, will you stand?

[228] The mother.

[229] The mother of their garaghan.

[230] Will you stand?

[231] The mother of Eric Garner, will you stand?

[232] And he runs through this long list.

[233] It's like a roll call.

[234] The sister of Batham John, will you stand?

[235] And people are cheering.

[236] The family of Pamela Turner right here in Houston, will you stand?

[237] They are standing, the crowd is standing.

[238] The father of Michael Brown from Ferguson, Missouri, where you stand?

[239] Wow, they're all there.

[240] Yeah.

[241] The father of Ahmed Aubrey, where you stand?

[242] And to have all of them there at this funeral, they know the pain of this more than anyone.

[243] You know, and they have the right to be angrier than everyone else.

[244] And yet here they are grieving with George Floyd's family.

[245] And you realize that George Floyd is part of this family of victims that should not be a family.

[246] All of these families came to stand with this.

[247] family because they know better than anyone else the pain they will suffer from the loss that they have gone through so there was one moment when I think Sharpton you know pulled together these two strands of the man and the symbol of George Floyd God always uses unlikely people to do his will.

[248] And that was a moment when Sharpton was alluding to George Floyd's arrest history.

[249] If George Floyd had been an Ivy League school graduate and one of these ones with a long title, we would have been accused of reacting to his prominence.

[250] If he'd been a multimillionaire, they would have said that we were reacting to his wealth.

[251] if he had been famous athlete as he was on the trajectory to be we would have said we were reacting to his fame but god took an ordinary brother and he was sort of talking about him as an ordinary from the third wall imperfect person from the housing projects from the third board projects that nobody thought much about but those that knew him and loved him he took the rejected stone and it was a very powerful moment where he called George Floyd a rejected stone, you know, making a reference to scripture.

[252] God took the rejected stone and made him the cornerstone of a movement that's going to change the whole wide world.

[253] And how those officers may have thought that nobody cared about a guy like that.

[254] Oh, if you would have had any idea that all of us would react, you'd have took your knee off his neck.

[255] you know and obviously the world knows now that the world did care about somebody like that and how he died and how he was treated if you had any idea that preachers white and black was going to line up in a pandemic when we told to stay inside and we come out and march in the streets at the risk of our health you took your knee up his neck because you thought His neck didn't mean nothing, but God made his neck to connect his head to his body, and you have no right to put your knee on that neck.

[256] I think in the past, I think there has been this desire to like, you know, to only, you know, pay attention to sort of perfect victims, to only to give attention to, you know, cases in which the person had this sort of, you know, holy life.

[257] And any brush with the law, no matter how many years ago, somehow was thought to taint, you know, how people viewed whatever police killing was in the news.

[258] And I think that shifted a little bit.

[259] And I see the difference in George Floyd.

[260] Your family is going to miss you, George.

[261] But your nation is going to always remember your name.

[262] And Sharpton ended.

[263] his remarks by touching on this idea that George Floyd was imperfect, and he still deserves the movement that was happening.

[264] So we're going to lay you near your mama now.

[265] You called for mama.

[266] We're going to lay your body next to hers.

[267] But I know mama's already embraced you, George.

[268] You fought a good fight.

[269] You kept the faith.

[270] You finish your course.

[271] Go on and get your rest now.

[272] Go on and see Mama now.

[273] We're going to fight on.

[274] We're going to fight on.

[275] We're going to fight on.

[276] We're going to fight on.

[277] I'm going to speak to y 'all real quick.

[278] I just want to say, man, that I got my shortcomings and my flowers.

[279] I ain't better than nobody else.

[280] But, man, the shootings is going on, man. I don't care what.

[281] Who did you from, man?

[282] man, where you at, man. I love you and God love you, man. Put some guns down, man. That ain't where it is, you know.

[283] God bless, man, and y 'all hold y 'all here, man. You got parents out here sitting place, man, trying to bury their kids, man. Think about it, man. I love y 'all.

[284] We'll be right back.

[285] Here's what else you need to know today.

[286] On Tuesday morning, President Trump endorsed a conspiracy theory that a 75 -year -old man who police were filmed pushing to the ground during a protest in Buffalo last week, had been using his cell phone to knock out law enforcement radios on behalf of the Antifa movement.

[287] In a tweet, the president offered no evidence of the theory but named a right -wing news organization, one American news network, in his tweet.

[288] Did you have a reaction to the president's treat earlier?

[289] I learned a long time ago not to comment on tweets, and I'm not going to break that time.

[290] Later in the day, Republican lawmakers and administration officials, including the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, dodged questions from reporters.

[291] The man who was injured in the incident, Martin Gugino, is still recovering in the hospital from a serious head injury.

[292] Meanwhile, a police officer in New York City was arrested and charged with assault on Tuesday after shoving a young woman to the ground, giving her a concussion.

[293] another scene that was filmed on a cell phone.

[294] And...

[295] This is a crisis in our world to make us not exercise our right to vote.

[296] Five states held their primary elections on Tuesday, including Georgia, where a new voting system put into place in 2018 after claims of voter suppression experienced catastrophic meltdowns.

[297] State -ordered voting machines were said to be missing or malfunctioning.

[298] causing voters to wait in line for hours at polling places across the state.

[299] Some gave up and left before casting a vote.

[300] The problems were made worse by the coronavirus pandemic, which left fewer poll workers available than usual and added to wait times because machines had to be disinfected.

[301] Predominantly black areas of Georgia experienced some of the worst obstacles to voting, raising concerns that the problems would further disinfected, franchise black voters.

[302] That's it for the Daily.

[303] I'm Caitlin Dickerson.

[304] See you tomorrow.