By Willie McLaurin
Vice president, SBC Executive Committee
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video recording must be worth a million.
In the disturbing video of George Floyd, who died in Minneapolis on Memorial Day while in police custody, words are really hard to come by. A bystander’s cellphone video showed a former police officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeling on Floyd’s neck, while Floyd repeatedly stated “I can’t breathe.”
In the future, Memorial Day will not only be about honoring the men and women who died while serving in the United States military. It will be remembered as the day my third cousin’s life was ended.
I do not recall my interactions with George as a lad, but our journeys are similar. We were born in the same year. We are black men in America. We were created in the image of God. And we live in a society that is dangerous and deadly for black men. [Read more…]