George Floyd’s Death Ignited A Movement. Watch His Burial In Houston Today.

George Floyd, the 46-year-old African American man who was killed by police in Minneapolis on Memorial Day, will be buried beside his mother in Houston today, reports the New York Times. 

It’s a fitting place for a man who called out for his mother with his last breaths.

This event has concluded.

Floyd was killed while being detained by now-fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who has been charged with second-degree murder after kneeling on his neck for nearly 9 minutes. 

Artist Phil Simpson painted the above portrait in tribute to George Floyd, and is donating half the proceeds to benefit Floyd’s family. See more details here.

Floyd’s death follows in a long line of killings of African American people, recently including 26-year-old Breonna Taylor who was killed by police while sleeping in her own home in Louisville, Ky., and 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery who was shot by vigilantes while jogging in Georgia. 

Black Lives Matter

Video of Floyd’s killing went viral, sparking protests and civil unrest across the country — including in Detroit, which has its own history of police violence.

Protests largely fall into the Black Lives Matter movement, whose organizers seek to bring attention to the devaluation of African American people. It began after the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African American boy walking home in Florida, and 2014 police-involved killing of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old African American man in Ferguson, Mo., whose death sparked the rallying cry “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot.”

The perpetrators of both killings were acquitted or not brought to trial.

National and local movement organizers have called for demilitarizing police, removing officers from places like schools, and, in some cases, dramatically scaling back police involvement in society. 

In Minneapolis, city leaders have pledged to disband the police department, which had a controversial profile in the community prior to Floyd’s killing.