Lift Your Voice
How My Nephew George Floyd’s Murder Changed the World
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Angela Harrelson, George Floyd’s aunt and closest relative in Minnesota, tells the behind-the-scenes story of George’s family—how he lived and why he died—and how the world can find a solution to racism through his death.
Angela Harrelson grew up poor, one of thirteen brothers and sisters raised in a shack in the North Carolina woods. She was first in her family to go to college, first to be commissioned in the military, and first to have a career as a professional nurse. Along the way, she and her family were exposed to the harshest forms of racism—from her childhood riding the school bus with white children who made the Black kids stand, to racist commanding officers in the Air Force who told her they wanted her to fail.
Nothing stopped Angela, and nothing removed the hope in her heart that America could learn to stop hating people based on the color of their skin. This is the story of George Floyd’s aunt, Angela Harrelson, and how, after being suddenly thrust into the spotlight, she went on a quest to make sure her nephew did not die in vain.
Lift Your Voice is a memoir of faith, hope, and bravery, of what we all—Black and white—need to do to eradicate racism from our society. It’s a story of tragic loss and a worldwide uprising to ensure Perry’s death ushers society into a time where people are no longer judged, hated, or killed because of the color of their skin.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this unfortunately thin account, George Floyd's maternal aunt voices her hurt and outrage at Derek Chauvin's murder of her nephew in 2020. Harrelson, who was born in 1962, recounts how, like her nephew, she experienced her fair share of endemic racism growing up in Goldsboro, N.C. Despite the adversity she faced, she earned several degrees and became a nurse specializing in chemical dependency. Harrelson details the deep attachment she felt to her nephew, who the family called Perry, and who "was in his 40s, and... wasn't getting anywhere" when his mother—her sister, Larcenia Jones Floyd—died. After his mother's death in 2018, Floyd and Harrelson fell out of touch. "The next time I saw Perry," she recalls, "was when he was on that hot sidewalk with that officer's knee on his neck, and he couldn't breathe." Horrified at his murder, she vowed to make his killing consequential by speaking out, including by providing a victim impact statement following Chauvin's homicide conviction. "The day the verdict... came in, I stood at memorial and felt peace." Despite her passion and sincerity, though, Harrelson's story is often repetitive and shares little new details about Floyd's actual life. Even sympathetic readers will find this disappointing.
