Editor's note: This is part one of a set of interviews The Pine Bluff Commercial conducted via Zoom with members of Floyd's family following the conviction of Derek Chauvin.
George Perry Floyd Jr. was his name, a man who was full of life but suffered an inhumane death, his family said.
For 9 minutes and 29 seconds, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd's neck, a video recording of which went across the country and around the world. Chauvin was found guilty by a Minneapolis jury last week for killing Floyd.
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Affectionately known as Perry, Floyd meant much to those who knew him, especially his family.
Floyd's family recounts the emotional roller coaster they have endured and their continued journey for justice for a man whose name has changed the world.
BACK TO ROOTS
"His mother was my sister," Angela Harrelson said about Floyd's mother, Larcenia Floyd, who died two years ago in George Floyd's hometown of Houston while he was living in Minneapolis trying to get a fresh start.
Raised by sharecropper parents in rural North Carolina, Larcenia Floyd was one of 14 children who grew up watching their parents endure racism.
"We were taught not to say nothing," said Mahalia Jones, fraternal twin sister to Harrelson.
Laura Stevens, another aunt, remembers hiding in ditches when cars would pass by if they were out past dark from out of fear of losing their lives and said their parents taught them what to do and what not to do during encounters with whites.
" [My mother] would tell us, 'You can't sit in the front; always sit in the back," Harrelson said, adding their mother taught them to always walk in the back door of white people's homes.
"We were conditioned on what to do and what not to do," Stevens said. "Even my brother. Don't smile, be careful with your conversations, let them be short."
Stevens said the mindset at the time was that Blacks weren't as good, and whites would always have the upper hand.
"We just had to deal with it. As we kept going, we kept going for hope and hoped that things would get better," Harrelson said. "We call it systemic racism today. They called it the Jim Crow Law, they called it the slave code, the Black code, all these things that came up to keep us from going forward."
BACK TO LIFE
Floyd was born Oct. 14, 1973. He grew up in Houston playing football and basketball throughout high school and college. He was a hip-hop artist and served as a mentor in his religious community.
"He was a well-known rapper," said Paris Stevens, Laura Steven's daughter, describing her 6-foot-8 cousin who she said was an all-American athlete. "He was a well-rounded person. He loved people; he loved the community, and his community loved him."
Laura Stevens remembers family gatherings around Thanksgiving and Christmas and said Floyd always had a polite demeanor.
"I enjoyed all the moments I had with him, not knowing it was going to be cut short," she said.
But Floyd's life wasn't always enjoyable. Between 1997 and 2005, he was convicted of eight crimes, serving four years in prison after accepting a plea bargain for a 2007 aggravated robbery in a home invasion.
Wanting to turn his life around, Floyd moved to Minneapolis.
"Perry came here to live," said Harrelson, who currently lives in Minneapolis.
Floyd worked as a truck driver and bouncer, but lost his jobs during the pandemic.
BACK TO MAY 25, 2020
Laura Stevens remembers being at home and getting a phone call from her sister telling her to turn the television on because Floyd was in trouble. Confused because the Floyd she knew was jolly, lovable and kind, Laura Stevens tuned in and watched in disbelief with the rest of the world.
"I was just screaming at the top of my voice," said Laura Stevens, who said she was yelling at the television, telling her nephew to get up. "How could they do that to him? He didn't do anything."
Paris Stevens described Chauvin's act of kneeling on Floyd's neck as a modern-day lynching.
" [Chauvin] didn't see him as a human being," Harrelson said. "There were people like, 'Wait a minute, I can't believe that. Get off of him. What are you doing?'"
Harrelson said she was sickened watching the video.
"He acted as if he had just caught a deer trophy," she said, describing how Chauvin applied more pressure to her nephew's neck with his hand in his pocket.
Harrelson said the officers mocked her nephew when he was crying out that he couldn't breathe, when they said, "If you can talk, you can breathe."
Paris Stevens said at that moment she saw her cousin as brave.
"He didn't waiver; he asked for help. He didn't get it," Paris Stevens said. "He fought trying to stay alive."
While millions around the world watched Floyd's life disappear under the knee of Chauvin on social media, Paris Stevens said social media is also where she realized everyone didn't see her cousin the same way she did.
"Social media can make or break your spirit sometimes. There are some people that are very judgmental, and they don't really know the situation," Paris Stevens said, referring to those who were persecuting her cousin due to his past. "There's no one that's perfect in life. It's so difficult to see the comments from people that don't even know you, don't even know your family ... to have that much hatred for someone just based on the color of their skin."
At that moment, as Floyd's family gathered around their televisions in disbelief watching their loved one cry out for help, the moment was also a test for those officers involved.
Assisting officers J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane each used their weight to help restrain Floyd on the ground while Chauvin was on his neck.
On body camera footage, Lane can be heard asking: "Should we roll him on his side?"
"No, staying put where we got him," Chauvin responded.
Lane said he was worried about excited delirium, but Chauvin stayed in position on Floyd's neck, telling Lane that is why Floyd was on his stomach.
Officers Kueng, Lane and Tou Thao, who was also at the scene with Chauvin, are facing their own charges in connection with the incident.
Floyd told officers "I can't breathe" more than 20 times, which Harrelson translated as her nephew crying out for help.
"He is asking Derek Chauvin for help because he saw him as a human being," Harrelson said. "You are not going to ask a monster for help but the huge problem was that Derek Chauvin's heart wasn't big enough to see [Floyd] as a human being because he was too busy looking at him as a Black man."
In Wednesday's publication, part two of this series, the Floyd family describes their journey leading up to Chauvin's trial, where they listened to compelling testimonies, why the video filmed by the 17-year-old was so important, how they felt after the verdict and what the future steps and actions they feel are needed to end systemic racism and oppression against Blacks.