TRAVEL IN PEACE GEORGE FLOYD

George Floyd was a man whose name will now forever be known. His life, so brutally cut short, will be an inspiration for millions of others to take up the struggle against repression and injustice around the world.

Born in North Carolina in 1973, he moved with his family to Houston, Texas as a young child. A highly talented basketball and football player in high school and at South Florida Community College, he was also involved with his church and was a contributor to Houston’s fledgling hip-hop scene.

In 2014, he moved across the country to Minneapolis to find work. For a while he worked a truck driver, but in 2017, he moved into security work. He involved himself in his new community through his church and was also concerned enough about African-American gun deaths, that he filmed an anti- gun violence video. George genuinely cared for his new community as he had done with others.

Prior to him being murdered, he had been laid off work because of the coronavirus pandemic. Like so many of us, he struggled to make ends meet on a day-to-day basis. As an African-American, even more so.

He earned the nick-name of “Gentle Giant” and had exemplary manners. Even at the time of his death, he repeatedly addressed the restraining officer as “sir”.

George leaves behind five children and two grand-children. They can take a small degree of comfort in forever knowing that their father / grandfather will forever be a civil rights icon, not just in the USA, but around the world.

His death at the hands of the KKK in blue will finally open up the floodgates of social reform in the United States.

However, his family will also face financial hardships that are only ever exacerbated by the huge degree of social and economic inequality that presently plagues the United States.

That only underscores the need for Universal Basic Income to be implemented in the US.

African-American communities struggle enough as it is, without then losing their fathers, brothers, mothers and sisters at the hands of police brutality and systemic racism.

Every now and then, the civil rights history books throw up the names of those of colossal magnitude. Think Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela or Rosa Parks. There is a now a new name to join those ranks – George Floyd.