HOUSTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th June, 2020) A horse-drawn carriage brought a gilded casket with George Floyd's body to a final rest two weeks and one day after his televised death in police custody horrified the United States and elevated a troubled African American to a nearly religious status of a martyr and an icon of a widening movement against racial injustice.
"George Floyd!" shouts a crowd of mourners and pauses for an energetic man with Floyd's image on his red T-shirt to finish the chant. "Just like Jesus," he cries out repeatedly, stomping his feet in agitation, while a cavalcade of horse carriages, cars and buses enters a Houston area cemetery.
On Tuesday, Floyd was buried next to his mother's grave in a Texas city where he grew up. The entombment was a heavily guarded private event, but it nevertheless drew hundreds of spectators, who spent hours, braving a heat wave in foldable chairs, under tents and umbrellas, to watch Floyd pass his final terrestrial mile to the cemetery gate.
"This is a historical moment. We had a doctor's appointment, but said 'We have to reschedule it.' While we are here, we need to see it," a white couple visiting Houston for cancer treatment says.
Thousands more attended memorial services, which were held in Houston for two days. Many turned up with their children to pay respects. In diverse queues a local university basketball team would stand next to a black bickers club, waiting patiently for their turn to approach the coffin. Similar ceremonies took place earlier in North Carolina, where Floyd was born, and in Minnesota, where he died under a policeman's knee on his neck.
"He was a sacrifice from God, he was a martyr. A lot of people got killed by the police without causing much confusion, but he was the one that God chose," says a street vendor who trades in hundreds of swiftly printed Floyd's portraits near a pilgrimage venue.
Over the past two weeks Floyd's last words, "I can't breathe," became a rallying cry for a wave of protests which engulfed the US and spread across the world. Devoid of a common leadership and a coherent agenda, often marred with arsons and looting, they have nevertheless evolved into a mighty movement against racial discrimination and already yielded pledges of a sweeping police reform.
"We have started to see change. It's so big that it even went to other countries. But I hate that Floyd had to lose his life for people to understand what's going on," a black biker, who calls himself Square, says.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner won a standing ovation at a Tuesday's service by announcing an executive order to ban chokeholds, a police detention technique that killed Floyd.
Police was present in large numbers at the funeral throughout the day, interacting amiably with the crowd, distributing water and rushing to help those who fainted under a blazing Texas sun. On bikes and on foot they escorted the procession with two high-ranking officers raising their fists in a gesture of solidarity. When the ceremony was over, a six-wheeled armored truck was seen leaving the venue, an evidence to plan B which luckily remained unclaimed. There were no flare-ups of violence during commemorative events in Houston.
Encouraged apparently by early successes, a funeral gathering attempts to introduce a new slogan - "We will breathe." "We are breath, we are life. I see greatness in you," an inventor addresses the crowd.
A young African American woman says that the movement sparked by Floyd's death has a solid chance of success, but "it just can't stop right here." A young African American man takes pride in his family's participation in the civil rights movement in the days of Martin Luther King and sees his duty to carry on the fight.
"We have made our voices heard but now it's time for action. It is now time to follow through. I call it the second coming of the civil rights movement.
My ancestors and my family members have done their part, now it's time for my generation to finish it off," he says.
They both have a bigger goal in mind than police reforms. They seek to eradicate the remnants of racist mentality and behavior still permeating the American society.
It's a long way from the cemetery to a hotel in downtown Houston, but not long enough for a black taxi driver to share all his grievances. "Microaggressions" he speaks about sound like a routine evil, not brazen enough to make headlines, but it poisons - drop by drop - everyday lives of many African Americans, who are less and less eager to condone it.
"Getting in an elevator with a white person, you can see the fear by the look on their face. Like they are mad that a black man is about to get in an elevator with them," he says. "You can see it when you walk to like a shopping mall and they get over to the other side of the street to get out of your way. You can see they clasp their purse, lock their doors if they see you on the street corner waiting for a bus when they pull out next to you."
"You go to a grocery store, you can hand them a Dollar bill and when they give you a change they put it on a counter instead of putting it back in your hand even if you have your hand up. Shit like that, man," the driver continues.
An elderly protester staging a sit-in next to Floyd's memorial speaks of "a discriminatory mindset."
"If I am driving my vehicle and a police officer comes up my heart changes. Automatically. White men wouldn't experience that. But my heart changes its bit," he says. "I had an officer telling me 'I am not going to shoot you yet.' That was his communication to me when he was checking my license."
"Hey, Russian media, tell people we have a country of systemic racism here," another African American man says. "Why, America, are you talking about Russia? America, what about you?"
