-Dying is a scary thing.
Knowing he died alone like that haunts me,
that I couldn't help him.
One thing you're gonna do growing up in the projects,
you're gonna lose a lot, a lot of family,
a lot of friends.
You're gonna lose.
We grew up in the same project development here in Fairwater.
He was a little older than I was,
but in the projects, age is not really a barrier.
You might find somebody 14 hanging with somebody 66.
Age is not a barrier as far as friendship and brotherhood goes.
I've been knowing him for a while, since I was in diapers.
-You will see three generations of project dwellers living here,
grandmother, mother, child,
sometimes even great-grandmothers,
all living in the same, not all the time the same unit,
but in the same space.
It's probably the last place in other than the third world
where you see abject poverty.
So, if you grew up in an environment like this
where you don't have access to food,
you don't have access to healthcare,
you don't have access to education,
you don't have access to good, fair housing,
and haven't had, as a people, for years.
When we talk about systemic racism,
you have the avatar for it in George Floyd.
All of those different factors got him to the point
where his last act of desperation
as a 40-something-year-old man was to travel to Minnesota
to people whose hands were open who said they'd help him.
George Floyd was one of the first people at our church
we encountered who was able to,
like, open doors that I couldn't open.
I could knock on a hundred doors,
and two or three people may come out.
But when he comes out of the building,
a hundred people come out.
So, he has a different type of energy about him,
and folks know who he is around here.
And he's been through the wars, and he's lived to tell about it.
-You can't fathom the things we went through as children
you would've never saw in your life.
You would've never wished that
on any child to see in their life.
We're talking about serious mental anguish.
You know, when you look back, going through all that,
all of that kind of makes you who you are today
just like my bro Floyd.
I believe everything he went through in his life,
it made him who he was.
Hurry up, Nicholas and Derrick.
All of the pain I went through as a child,
that's the reason I am the way I am with youth now,
is because I want to make sure
that I'm somebody that's giving them good leadership.
The kids that are a part of my life that I counsel,
that I'm a mentor to, that I coach, they give me hope.
In the inner projects, sports is an outlet early
because that's all you have.
But how far you go, that's what those do for you.
His example as an athlete was huge as a community,
'cause a lot of us would take that step
because he took the step.
For us to be able to watch him play in the Astrodome
in high school, we were in junior high.
That was huge.
That told you, "Man, we can do this."
Coming to see somebody from where we from,
struggle how we struggle,
eat what we eat, hurt when we hurt,
to see them taking all them steps to progress
is always a push.
-He was like a father figure 'cause, I mean,
the life cycle of people from where I'm from
and from places like this, you're an OG at 21.
So, if you're over 30, you're, like, grandparents status, wise.
He's a person you call if there's an issue
between two families, you call him.
He smoothes out the situation.
There's video footage of him
sending little messages to folks,
"Hey, man, quit all that violence."
-Man, I don't care what hood you from,
where you at, I love you, and God loves you, man.
Put the guns down, man.
-And it's not like he's talking about the folks here
and some folks in another neighborhood.
He's talking about the people here, to the people here.
So, he had that kind of presence and pull in this community.
-His legacy taught me that I've become too comfortable.
And it really kind of convicted me.
It's painful when you're viewing yourself,
and you see you've become more of a wall than a bridge.
That's painful.
'Cause I can do more.
I remember my last conversation.
He was like, "Man, you know what?
We gonna push through.
It's rough.
It's rough right now. We gonna push through.
We gonna push through."
And I always reminded him, that's all we got to do
is push through.