As the U. S. mourns the death of another unarmed Black man at the hands of police, there are signs that the country is united in the need to reform the nation’s criminal justice system.
On June 12, an unarmed Rayshard Brooks was killed by two police officers. On Tuesday afternoon, his family and his city observed his funeral. As his family, his community, and our nation mourn both the loss of Brooks and the death of another unarmed Black man, there are signs that the country is united in the need to reform, at least in some respects, the nation’s criminal justice system.
Brooks’s funeral, held at one o’clock on an overcast Tuesday in downtown Atlanta, was another in a seemingly endless number of recent funerals held to memorialize Black individuals killed at the hands of police violence. The pews of Ebenezer Baptist Church, the spiritual home of the late Civil Rights Movement leader Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., were filled with family members and community leaders, including Atlanta’s Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Atlanta entertainer T. I., and others. Dr. King’s sister, Reverend Dr. Bernice A. King, the CEO of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, shared remarks. Reverend Dr. Raphael G. Warnock, senior pastor of the church and current Democratic candidate for U. S. Senate, gave the eulogy.
Brooks’s death outside a Wendy’s in Atlanta came amidst a wave of protests following the deaths of two more unarmed Black individuals, George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville.
