HOUSTON – The memorial services to honor George Floyd are extraordinary: three cities over six days, with a chance for mourners to pay their respects in the communities where he was born, grew up, and died.
But so are the circumstances surrounding them: Since his May 25 death in Minneapolis, Floyd's name has been chanted by hundreds of thousands of people and empowered a movement.
Violent encounters between police, protesters, and observers have inflamed a country already reeling from the coronavirus pandemic.
The organizers of the memorials want to acknowledge the meaning Floyd had in life to his large family and the broader meaning he has assumed in death, which happened after a white officer pressed a knee into the handcuffed black