He was an outsize man who dreamed equally big, unswayed by the setbacks of his life.
Growing up in one of Houston’s poorest neighborhoods, he enjoyed a star turn as a basketball and football player, with three catches for 18 yards in a state championship game his junior year.
He was the first of his siblings to go to college, and he did so on an athletic scholarship. But he returned to Texas after a couple of years, and lost nearly a decade to arrests and incarcerations on mostly drug-related offenses. By the time he left his hometown for good a few years ago, moving 1,200 miles to Minneapolis for work, he was ready for a fresh start.
When he traveled to Houston in 2018 for his mother’s funeral — they died two years and one week apart — he told his family that Minneapolis had begun to feel like home. He had his mother’s name tattooed on his belly, a fact that was noted in his autopsy.
Floyd was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, to George Perry and Larcenia Floyd. But he was really from a Houston neighborhood called the Bricks.
After his parents split up, his mother moved him and his siblings to Texas, where he grew up in the red brick world of Cuney Homes, a low-slung 564-unit public housing complex in Houston’s 3rd Ward that was named for Norris Wright Cuney, one of the most politically powerful black men in the state in the late 1800s.
Floyd’s mother — who was known as Cissy — was among the leaders of Cuney Homes and an active member of the resident council. She raised her own children and, at times, some of her grandchildren and some of her neighbors’ children, too.
As a child, Floyd was known in the Bricks as Perry, his middle name. As he grew, so, too, did his nicknames. He was Big Floyd, known as much for his big personality as his sense of humor.
Floyd’s height — he was more than 6 feet tall in middle school — created a kind of mystique.
“You can just imagine this tall kid as a freshman in high school walking the hallways. We were like, ‘Man, who is that guy?’ He was a jokester, always laughing and cracking jokes,” said Herbert Mouton, 45, who played on the Yates high school football team with Floyd. “We were talking the other day with classmates trying to think, ‘Had Floyd even ever had a fight before?’ And we couldn’t recall it.”
Mouton said that after the loss of a big game, Floyd would let the team sulk for a few minutes before telling a joke to lighten the mood. “He never wanted us to feel bad for too long,” he said (Fernandez and Burch 2-3).
"Anytime I take somebody who's not from there, people actually are like 'man, oh my God, I've never seen poverty like this.”
"It looks like a bomb went off, what happened?'" Ronnie Lillard, a friend from the neighbourhood tells the BBC.
"People are still living in shot-gun shacks that were erected in the 1920s. The poverty is thorough... and being from that area, it's hard to escape," says Mr Lillard … (George 1).
Floyd saw sports as the path out of the Bricks. And so he leaned into his size and athletic prowess in a sports-obsessed state. As a tight end, Floyd helped power his football team to the state championship game in 1992.
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After graduating from high school, Floyd left Texas on a basketball scholarship to South Florida Community College (now South Florida State College).
“I was looking for a power forward, and he fit the bill. He was athletic, and I liked the way he handled the ball,” said George Walker, who recruited Floyd. “He was a starter and scored 12 to 14 points and seven to eight rebounds.”
Floyd transferred two years later, in 1995, to Texas A&M University’s Kingsville campus, but he did not stay long. He returned home to Houston — and to the 3rd Ward — without a degree.
Known locally as the Tré, the 3rd Ward, south of downtown, is among the city’s historically black neighborhoods, and it has been featured in the music of one of the most famous people to grow up there, Beyoncé.
At times, life in the Bricks was unforgiving. Poverty, drugs, gangs and violence scarred many 3rd Ward families. Several of Floyd’s classmates did not live past their 20s.
Soon after returning, Floyd started rapping. He appeared as Big Floyd on mixtapes created by DJ Screw, a fixture in Houston’s hip-hop scene in the 1990s.
His voice deep, his rhymes purposefully delivered at a slow-motion clip, Floyd rapped about “choppin’ blades” — driving cars with oversize rims — and his 3rd Ward pride.
According to court records in Harris County … authorities arrested him on nine separate occasions between 1997 and 2007 … On multiple occasions, police would make sweeps through the [Cuney Homes] complex and end up detaining a large number of men, including Floyd, a neighborhood friend named Tiffany Cofield told the AP. Additionally, Texas has one of the highest incarceration rates in the country, per the Prison Policy Initiative, and several studies show authorities are way more likely to target Black Texans for arrests than white residents (Fernandez and Burch 4).
[in 2007, Floyd was arrested for his most serious crime: aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon]
Two adults, Aracely Henriquez and Angel Negrete, and a toddler were in a home when they heard a knock at the front door. When Henriquez looked out the window, she saw a man “dressed in a blue uniform” who said “he was with the water department.” But when she opened the door, she realized the man was telling a lie and she tried shutting him out. …
However, this male held the door open and prevented her from doing so. At this time, a black Ford Explorer pulled up in front of the Complainants’ residence and five other black males exited this vehicle and proceeded to the front door. The largest of these suspects [Floyd] forced his way into the residence, placed a pistol against the complainant’s abdomen, and forced her into the living room area of the residence. This large suspect then proceeded to search the residence while another armed suspect guarded the complainant, who was struck in the head and side areas by this second armed suspect with his pistol after she screamed for help. As the suspects looked through the residence, they demanded to know where the drugs and money were and Complaint Henriquez advised them that there were no such things in the residence. The suspects then took some jewelry along with the complainant’s cell phone before they fled the scene in the black Ford Explorer (Lee 2-3).
Four years later, Floyd pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon and spent four years in prison. He was released in 2013 and returned home again — this time to begin the long, hard work of trying to turn his life around, using his missteps as a lesson for others.
Stephen Jackson, a retired professional basketball player from Port Arthur, Texas, met Floyd a year or two before Jackson joined the NBA.
They had sports in common, Jackson said, but they also looked alike — enough to call each other “twin” as a term of endearment.
“I tell people all the time, the only difference between me and George Floyd, the only difference between me and my twin, the only difference between me and Georgie, is the fact that I had more opportunities,” he said, later adding, “If George would have had more opportunities, he might have been a pro athlete in two sports” ((Fernandez and Burch 5).
“He came home with his head on right,” said friend Travis Cains.
At a Christian rap concert in the Third Ward, Floyd met Lillard and pastor Patrick “PT” Ngwolo, whose ministry was looking for ways to reach residents in Cuney Homes. Floyd, who seemed to know everyone in the project, volunteered to be their guide.
On the streets of Cuney, Floyd was increasingly embraced as an O.G. -- literally “original gangster,” but bestowed as a title of respect for a mentor who’d learned from life experience.
In Tiffany Cofield’s classroom at a neighborhood charter school, some of her male students -- many of whom had already had brushes with the law -- told her to talk to “Big Floyd” if she wanted to understand.
Floyd would listen patiently as she voiced her frustrations with students’ bad behavior, she said. And he would try to explain the life of a young man in the projects.
After school, Floyd often met up with her students outside a corner store.
“How’s school going?” he’d ask. “Are you being respectful? How’s your mom? How’s your grandma” (Henao, Merchant, Lozano, and Geller 3-4).
… Floyd spent a lot of time at Resurrection Houston, a church that holds many of its services on the basketball court in the middle of Cuney Homes. He would set up chairs and drag out to the center of the court the service’s main attraction — the baptism tub.
“We’d baptize people on the court and we’ve got this big old horse trough. And he’d drag that thing by himself onto that court,” said Patrick Ngwolo, a lawyer and pastor of Resurrection Houston, who described Floyd as a father figure for younger community residents.
Eventually, Floyd became involved in a Christian program with a history of taking men from the 3rd Ward to Minnesota and providing them with drug rehabilitation and job placement services.
“When you say, ‘I’m going to Minnesota,’ everybody knows you’re going to this church-work program out of Minnesota,” Ngwolo said, “and you’re getting out of this environment.”
His move would be a fresh start, Ngwolo said, his story one of redemption (Fernandez and Burch 6).
As the father of five children from several relationships, he had bills to pay. And despite his stature in Cuney, everyday life could be trying. More than once, Floyd ended up in handcuffs when police came through the projects and detained a large number of men, Cofield said.
“He would show by example: ‘Yes, officer. No, officer.’ Very respectful. Very calm tone,” she said.
A friend of Floyd’s had already moved to the Twin Cities as part of a church discipleship program that offered men a route to self-sufficiency by changing their environment and helping them find jobs.
“He was looking to start over fresh, a new beginning,” said Christopher Harris, who preceded Floyd to Minneapolis. Friends provided Floyd with money and clothing to ease the transition.
In Minnesota, Floyd lived in a red clapboard duplex with two roommates on the eastern edge of St. Louis Park, a gentrifying Minneapolis suburb.
Beginning sometime in 2017, he worked as a security guard at the Salvation Army’s Harbor Light Center, a downtown homeless shelter and transitional housing facility. The staff got to know Floyd as someone with a steady temperament, whose instinct to protect employees included walking them to their cars.
“It takes a special person to work in the shelter environment,” said Brian Molohon, executive director of development at the Salvation Army Northern Division. “Every day you are bombarded with heartache and brokenness”
...
“He would regularly walk a couple of female co-workers out … at night and make sure they got to their cars safely and securely,” said Brian Molohon, director of development for the Army’s Minnesota office. “Just a big strong guy, but with a very tender side.”
...
Even as Floyd settled into his position, he looked for other jobs. While working at the Salvation Army, he answered a job ad for a bouncer at Conga Latin Bistro, a restaurant and dance club.
...
Jovanni Thunstrom, the owner, said Floyd quickly became part of the work family. He came in early and left late. And though he tried, he never quite mastered salsa dancing
“He would dance badly to make people laugh,” said … Thunstrom. “I tried to teach him how to dance because he loved Latin music, but I couldn’t because he was too tall for me.”
…
Right away I liked his attitude,” said Thunstrom, .... “He would shake your hand with both hands. He would bend down to greet you.”
Floyd kept a Bible by his bed. Often, he read it aloud. And despite his height, Floyd would fold himself in the hallway to frequently pray with Theresa Scott, one of his roommates.
“He had this real cool way of talking. His voice reminded me of Ray Charles. He’d talk fast and he was so soft-spoken,” said Alvin Manago, 55, who met Floyd at a 2016 softball game. They bonded instantly and became roommates.
“He had this low-pitched bass. You had to get used to his accent to understand him. He’d say, ‘Right-on, right-on, right-on’.”
…
Floyd kept his connection to Houston, regularly returning to Cuney..
When Houston hosted the Super Bowl in 2017, Floyd was back in town, hosting a party at the church with music and free AIDS testing. He came back again for his mother’s funeral the next year. … Floyd was planning another trip for this summer.
By then, Floyd was out of work. Early this spring, Thunstrom cut Floyd’s job when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the club to close (Henao, Merchant, Lozano, and Geller 6-10).
Floyd spent the final weeks of his life recovering from the coronavirus, which he learned he had in early April. After he was better, he started spending more time with his girlfriend, and he had not seen his roommates in a few weeks ….
Like millions of people, his roommates in the city that was to be his fresh start watched the video that captured Floyd taking his last breaths.
They heard him call out for his late mother: “Mama! Mama!”
On Tuesday morning, 15 days after that anguished cry, Floyd will be laid to rest beside her (Fernandez and Burch 4-9).
They met one evening four summers ago, and she was instantly drawn to his “great, deep, southern voice.” She gave him her phone number that night, and they became close, exploring the city’s sculpture garden and its vibrant restaurant scene. Soon she was simply calling him “Floyd,” just like his friends did.
“Floyd was new to the city, so everything was kind of new to him,” Ms. Ross said. “He made it seem like I was new to my own city.”
For Courteney Ross, a lifelong resident of Minneapolis, George Floyd made her hometown seem new again, undiscovered.
On the fourth day of testimony in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin, the former officer charged in Mr. Floyd’s death, the prosecution presented a fuller picture of George Floyd the person. In testimony, Ms. Ross, who had been dating Mr. Floyd for almost three years, described how he was a caring partner, a devoted father and passionate about exercise — a guy who loved to ride his bike and play ball with the neighborhood children.
She talked about all these things, as well as the ups and downs of their relationship, his love for his mother and the devastation he felt when she died a few years ago.
And like so many Americans, the couple had a shared struggle: opioid addiction.
“Our story, it’s a classic story of how many people get addicted to opioids,” she said. “We both struggled from chronic pain. Mine was in my neck and his was in his back.”
…
“Addiction in my opinion is a lifelong struggle,” Ms. Ross said, in sometimes halting, tearful testimony. “It’s something we dealt with every day. It’s not something that just comes and goes.”
…
Ms. Ross told … that they relapsed together last spring, and that Mr. Floyd was hospitalized for several days in March after she found him doubled over in pain from an overdose. Later that month, she thought they had both managed to quit again, but in the weeks before he died in May, a change in Mr. Floyd’s behavior made her think he had again begun using.
“We got addicted and tried really hard to break that addiction many times,” she said. “When you know someone who suffers from any type of addiction, you can start to kind of see changes when they’re using again.”
…
In the earlier testimony, Ms. Ross also said that Mr. Floyd referred to her and his own mother, who died in 2018, by the same nickname: “Mama.” Mr. Floyd had called out for “Mama” as Mr. Chauvin knelt on his neck before his death.
Mr. Floyd had moved to Minneapolis from Houston looking for a fresh start, but after his mother died, Ms. Ross said, he changed. “He seemed like a shell of himself,” she said. “Like he was broken. He seemed so sad. He didn’t have the same kind of bounce that he had.”
…
She first met him at a Salvation Army homeless shelter where Mr. Floyd worked as a security guard. One night, he saw her waiting in the lobby to talk with the father of her two children about the birthday of one of their sons. Mr. Floyd sensed that she was upset.
“He was like, ‘Sis, you OK, sis?’” Ms. Ross recounted. He told her she was not OK.
“He said, ‘Can I pray with you?’”
“This kind person just to come up to me, and say can I pray with you, when I felt alone in this lobby,” she said. “It was so sweet at the time. I had lost faith in God” (Arango, Bogel-Burroughs, and Bosman 1-4).
Works cited:
Arango, Tim, Bogel-Burroughs, Nicholas, and Bosman, Julie. “George Floyd’s Girlfriend Says Opioid Addiction Was a Struggle They Shared.” The New York Times, updated April 9, 2021. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/01/us/courteney-ross.html
Fernandez, Manny, and Burch, Audra D. S. “George Floyd, from ‘I Want To Touch the World’ to ‘I Can’t Breathe’.” Seattle Times, upgraded June 10, 2020. Net. https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/george-floyd-from-i-want-to-touch-the-world-to-i-cant-breathe/
"George Floyd, the Man Whose Death Sparked US Unrest.” BBC News, May 31, 2020. Net. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52871936
Henao, Luis Andres, Merchant, Nomaan, Lozano, Juan, and Geller, Adam. “A Long Look at the Complicated Life of George Floyd.” Chicago Tribune, June 11, 2020. Net. https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-nw-life-of-george-floyd-biography-20200611-cxmlynpyvjczpbe6izfduzwv54-story.html
Lee, Jessica. “Background Check: Investigating George Floyd’s Criminal Record.” Snopes, February 24, 2021. Net. https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/06/12/george-floyd-criminal-record/
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