Mr. George Floyd’s Legacy is my Own

legacy : a gift by will especially of money or other personal property

The connection I have to my loved ones is wrapped in the multi-generational stories which have created a collective identity. My identity stands upon the shoulders of the lived experiences of my grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, father, and mother. Their intertwining stories of military service, achievement, marriages, and births serve as the threads situating me in the world and informing my perceptions of the world. These threads are my family’s legacy. To recognize legacy, is to know that my story began prior to my birth, will run through my life, and has already been gifted to my three daughters.

legacy noun leg·​a·​cy | \ ˈle-gə-sē \: something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past

Family graduations, anniversaries, birthdays, and funerals are storytelling and legacy building times. My family’s stories are brimming with joy, pride, and laughter, but also fear, anguish, and anger. So, while we are all consumed by Mr. Floyd’s story, my heart and mind reflect on the parallel moments etched within my family’s story. These multi-generational moments of my past include:

• The back seat view of an all black chain gang toiling on the roadside.
• A World War veteran’s struggle to obtain a mortgage on the street of his choosing.
• A little boy’s pain from the round-robin reading of “Little Black Sambo” in his grammar school classroom.
• The palpable fear in the retelling of a safe escape from a probable Texas lynching.

leg‧a‧cy /ˈlegəsi/ noun (plural legacies) a situation that exists as a result of things that happened at an earlier time

And so, I am of a sharecropper’s despair, a war veteran’s exasperation, and a child’s humiliation caused by a “No Colored” sign. These legacy stories are conjoined with my own lived experiences. I am…

• The humiliated child, expecting a handful of Halloween candy, only to endure the words, “There is a n _ _ _ _ _at the door.”
• The high school student, counselled to join the military and discouraged from pursuing a college degree.
• The teacher, face to face with the boy, now a parent, who yelled racial epitaphs at her younger self.

And now, Mr. George Floyd’s lived experience is intertwined with the collective stories of my African American experience. Mr. Floyd’s death reaches back and pulls the threads of my past, through to my present, and into the now reconfigured legacies carried by my three daughters.

Mr. Floyd’s legacy is my own, and I engage life through this legacy each day.