The funeral for Rayshard Brooks, the Black man who was fatally shot during an encounter with police at a fast food restaurant earlier this month, was an emotional and triumphant send-off for a man killed in the midst of the nation's latest moment for racial and social reckoning.
Mourners, many of them wearing white, gathered for a private service at Atlanta's historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. served as co-pastor.
"Rayshard Brooks is the latest high-profile casualty in the struggle for justice and the battle for the soul of America," the Rev. Raphael Warnock, the church's senior pastor said during the eulogy.
"We really should not be here today"
Bernice King, the youngest child of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., told mourners she did not know Rayshard Brooks or his family, but she knew their pain.
At the public viewing on Monday, some mourners paying respect to Brooks wore shirts that said "Black Lives Matter," while others stood silently before the gold casket where his body lay.
