Angela Harrelson shares how her nephew George Floyd’s death changed the world

MOORHEAD, Minn. (KVRR) – George Floyd’s aunt Angela Harrelson holds a discussion at Minnesota State University Moorhead on how her nephew’s murder changed the world.

Angela Harrelson spoke of her nephew her family calls Perry. She described Floyd as a “ghetto superstar” who was born in North Carolina, grew up in Houston and moved to Minneapolis to change his life after being in prison and fighting with sobriety.

Harrelson shared stories in her book Lift Your Voice: How My Nephew George Floyd’s Murder Changed The World. It goes through each decade of her life and how she dealt with racism. Harrelson says when she was young in the 1960s, she couldn’t play with white children after school. In college when someone brought up racism, people wouldn’t want to acknowledge it and would say “Get over it.”

Harrelson feels when her nephew was killed in May of 2020, Black America was tired of centuries of inequality. She says the murder wasn’t just about race, but humanity.

Harrelson was overwhelmed with the response of protests and marches in her nephew’s name and was elated to find out her family wasn’t alone in their fight. She says love gave her the strength to move on.

“If Perry had the courage to say ‘I can’t breathe!’ lying there handcuffed on the hot cement saying ‘I can’t breathe!’ 28 times, then I can find the courage in me who’s not in the predicament to be a voice. And that’s when I started to speak out,” Harrelson said.

Harrelson says the day former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murder, she felt it set the standards that police officers would be held accountable.

She’s glad her nephew’s death led to changes in policing in Minneapolis and nationwide including a federal ban on chokeholds, police having to intervene and report abuse from their partners and wear and turn on body cameras when they’re on duty.

As a mental health professional, Harrelson says she’s dealt with a lot of people in stress, but they shouldn’t be killed for it or for getting pulled over. She feels if police can have hostage negotiators, they can come up with policies to help black Americans when they’re in trouble.