A week after George Floyd died at the hands of the police in Minneapolis, protests across the US are still going strong. But at the very scene where he died, members of the African-American community on Monday peacefully gathered to pay their tributes, and to be reminded of their constant struggle against systematic racism. FRANCE 24’s Kethevane Gorjestani reports.
Hundreds of people on Monday gathered at the scene where Floyd, an unarmed African American, was killed at the hands of a white police officer a week earlier. Although the gathering was largely about paying tribute, with flowers, prayers and chants, it also served as a painful reminder of the daily struggles of African-Americans against systematic racism.
“It’s sad for the African Americans around here because we already question where our place is in America. And with things like this, if we don’t stand up, we’re showing them that we’re allowing this stuff [to happen]. We’ve been allowing it for too long now,” Tommy Macbrayer, who organised the gathering, told FRANCE 24.
Since 2014, at least 100 African-Americans, including Trayyon Martin, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland and Eric Garner, have died at the hands of the police. And their deaths have stoked very real fears in the African-American community.
“Every single night I worry about my sons. I track their locations. And I have predominantly good children, do you know what I mean?,” said an African-American mother who did not want to give her name.
“The fear of just not knowing. That if you don’t raise your hands or if you get pulled over, this could be your very last day living here. It’s overwhelming.”
