Note: The memorial for George Floyd can be viewed live in the video player above beginning at around 1 p.m. CST.
Mourners are converging on Minneapolis Thursday for the first in a series of a memorials to George Floyd, whose death at the hands of police has sparked protests around the world against racial injustice.
The afternoon event is set to take place at North Central University, where civil rights leader the Rev. Al Sharpton is scheduled to be among those eulogizing the 46-year-old Floyd.
“He was a human being. He had family, he had dreams, he had hopes. The real duty of one with this type of assignment is to underscore the value of the human life that was taken, which gives the reason the movement was occurring,” Sharpton said ahead of the gathering.
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Also Thursday, Floyd's brother will lead a memorial prayer service in New York City, followed by a march across the Brooklyn Bridge.
Demonstrators will join Terrence Floyd and Civil Rights leader Reverend Kevin McCall at 1 p.m. ET at Brooklyn's Cadman Plaza Park, the same site where tempers flared after curfew the night before. After the service, the march will work its way across the Brooklyn Bridge and end at Foley
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"Even though you are angry, we are coming and doing this in peace," Terrence Floyd said.
Memorials are set to take place in three cities over six days: After the Minneapolis event, Floyd’s body will go to Raeford, North Carolina, where he was born, for a public viewing and private family service on Saturday.
Next, a public viewing will be held Monday in Houston, where he was raised and lived most of his life. Then a 500-person service will take place Tuesday at the Fountain of Praise church.
The farewells for Floyd — an out-of-work bouncer who was arrested on suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 bill at a convenience store and died after a white officer pressed his knee on the handcuffed black man's neck for nearly nine minutes — come as demonstrations across the U.S. and around the globe continue.
Prosecutors charged the three other Minneapolis officers at the scene of Floyd's death with aiding and abetting a murder, and filed a new, more serious murder charge — second-degree, up from third-degree — against the officer at the center of the case, Derek Chauvin.
The new charges punctuated an unprecedented week in modern American history, in which largely peaceful protests took place in communities of all sizes but were rocked by bursts of violence, including theft, vandalism and arson. In Minneapolis alone, more than 220 buildings were damaged or burned, with damage topping $55 million, city officials said.
Nationwide, more than 10,000 people have been arrested, an Associated Press tally found. More than a dozen deaths have been reported, though the circumstances in many cases are still being sorted out.
Floyd's death has also triggered demonstrations around the world, with protesters decrying inequality, police brutality and other problems in their own countries.
