Former Vice President Joe Biden hasn’t traveled for months during coronavirus shutdowns, but on Monday he is headed to Houston to meet with the family of George Floyd. Floyd’s funeral will be held Tuesday after a Monday viewing.
Biden won’t attend the funeral to avoid disruption by his Secret Service detail, but he will offer video remarks for the funeral, The New York Times reports, in addition to his in-person meeting with the family.
Days after Minneapolis police killed Floyd, Biden spoke by phone with members of Floyd’s family and, in public remarks, called the killing “an act of brutality so elemental it did more than deny one more Black man in America his civil rights and his human rights, it denied him of his very humanity, it denied him of his life.”
In another speech following Floyd’s killing, Biden slammed Donald Trump’s use of protest to try to foment racial division and offered policy prescriptions to crack down on police violence and racism. “I promise you this," Biden said. "I won't traffic in fear and division. I won't fan the flames of hate. I will seek to heal the racial wounds that have long plagued this country—not use them for political gain.”
Biden also made one of his rare coronavirus-era public appearances to speak with protesters.