HOUSTON -- On Monday, a steady stream of mourners made their way through a Houston church to pay their respects to George Floyd.
Floyd, who died in Minneapolis police custody on May 25, setting off a firestorm of protests across the nation, grew up in Houston’s Third Ward. Much of his family still lives in the area.
Floyd will be buried Tuesday. The day prior, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott remarked that he “is going to change the arc of the future of the United States.”
Mourner Xavier Quattlebaul made his own T-shirts for the occasion of Monday’s ceremony, the lettering on the front comprised of some of Floyd’s last words: “I can’t breathe.”
It’s a message that has been repeated around the world at Black Lives Matter protests.
“It’s not about the death, it’s more about the change for the next generation,” Quattlebaul says. “We didn’t have our Emmett Till. This right here is an Emmett Till for my generation.”
Quattlebaul drove 19 hours from Columbia, South Carolina, to spread his message. He had no idea how popular his shirts would be.
“My first day I started off with 60 shirts. That 60 shirts ended up going into like 250,” he says.
Despite his tragic death, attendees believe Floyd has galvanized a movement.
A George Floyd memorial T-shirt is displayed in Houston, Texas, in this image from June 8, 2020. (Stef Manisero/Spectrum News)
“I have a son, a black son,” mourner Sherry Roberts says. “So it’s not just a matter of having people come out here and say ‘This is George Floyd.’ George Floyd is now speaking to the world even though he’s not with us.”
“I look around and I see all over the world, all over the world, people are saying, ‘George Floyd – we can’t breathe,’” mourner Rose Spencer says. “I couldn’t breathe until George Floyd died. Now I can breathe because people hear us.”
“Life should be like this, and it’s not going to change unless we change it, unless we do whatever we can to change it and to talk to each other,” mourner Debbie Logan says.
“The thing is, it’s time,” Spencer says. “And I can tell you, through all of this, through Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, all of this, I never shed a tear because I never thought it was going to make a change. For once, we got change.”