The lasting memories from George Floyd‘s memorial service on Tuesday morning won’t necessarily be one individual speech or eulogy or remark. Instead, it will be the overall collective of voices, from a video message delivered by former Vice President Joe Biden, to Rev. Al Sharpton‘s powerful eulogy highlighting racial injustice and what has been sparked since Floyd’s untimely death at the hands of Minneapolis police on May 25th.
Inside Houston’s Fountain of Praise, mourners cried, they shouted to the heavens, they danced in their seats and imitated the vocal runs of their favorite singers. The weight of songs such as “For Every Mountain” and “Oh, How Precious Sung” brought those who wouldn’t normally sing in the sanctuary turn into altos and sopranos at a moment’s notice.
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Among the speakers included Pastor Ralph Douglas West and civil rights legend Rev. William Lawson who championed the Floyd family’s grace throughout the grief process. “Nobody knew that on October 14, 1973 in our spirited Fayetteville, North Carolina … that God had birthed someone now belongs in a rightful place of history,” West said of Floyd.
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“All the marches were black,” Rev. William Lawson said of his time during the Civil Rights Movement. “Today, there are preachers back there and there is at least one Muslim minister who is here. I brought me a Jewish fellow. All the nations, continents across the world, they know the name of this man, who was born in a stable, in a manger. You can raise the question, can anything come out of a tragedy like this?”
Lawson noted that regardless of religious affiliation or more, every pastor, preacher, rabbi and more knew the name of George Floyd. In his remarks, Pastor Steve Wells took a different approach, calling out white churches to finally speak up about racism.
“Not talking and not acting is the path to destruction,” Wells said. “I would like to say a word to white churches. We are better than we used to be, but we are not better than we ought to be and that’s not good enough. Which means you have to take up the work of racial justice. Racism did not start in our lifetimes but racism can end in our lifetimes. But only if you ask and I ask, ‘What am I going to do about it?’”
In his eulogy, Rev. Al Sharpton remarked how Floyd was an “ordinary brother” from Houston’s Cuney Homes who became something far greater than could be believed.
“God took the rejected stone and made him the cornerstone of a movement that’s going to change the whole wide world,” Sharpton said.
He added, “Your family is going to miss you George, but your nation is going to always remember your name. Because your neck was one that represents all of us, and how you suffered is how we all suffer.”
Hit the next pages to see performances by Kim Burrell, Kurt Carr, Nakitta Foxx, Kathy Taylor, Dray Tate, Zacardi Cortez, and Michael Tolds.
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