[Rayshard Brooks’ Funeral]
Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church and a Democratic candidate for US Senate, noted Brooks was killed while running away and George Floyd was killed by police while complying.
Photo: YouTube
Rayshard Brooks, in his casket, being taken into Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church where Dr. King preached.
Rayshard Brooks was remembered at his funeral Tuesday as a smiling, oft-dancing, hard-working father brought down by a racist legal system of imprisonment, probation and police violence.
Brooks was laid to rest at a private funeral service in Atlanta at historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. served as a co-pastor from 1960 until his assassination in 1968.
Ambrea Mikolajczyk, who runs a construction company in Toledo, Ohio, where Brooks worked last year, said he biked to work every day as he tried to overcome the restrictions placed on him while on probation.
“Ray had overcome his circumstances. He was working hard to become the best provider, caretaker, community builder, father, husband, son, brother and relationship agent he could possibly be,” she said. “The justice system and systemic racism that exists made it fairly impossible for him to try to live a prosperous life well after he had paid his debt.”
In one instance, a coworker’s car broke down and Brooks got off his bike and walked alongside the coworker for two hours.
“That’s the type of man Ray was. He looked out for everyone,” she said.
The funeral comes more than a week after the 27-year-old father was shot and killed by an Atlanta police officer after he fought with police and tried to flee during an attempted arrest. The shooting, amid nationwide protests against systemic racism and police brutality, has led to the resignation of the police chief and criminal charges against the officer who killed him and another officer on scene.
The Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church and a Democratic candidate for US Senate, noted Brooks was killed while running away and George Floyd was killed by police while complying.
“If your skin is the weapon and your complexion is the crime, what do you do to stay alive? Comply like George Floyd? Or run like Rayshard Brooks? I’m not asking for a friend, I’m asking for myself and my nieces and my nephews and my children,” he said.
“This country has become too accustomed and comfortable with Black people dying. That’s what we mean when we say Black Lives Matter. “
For the rest of this CNN story log on to: https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/23/us/rayshard-brooks-funeral/index.html
