内容摘要：Replicas of dinosaurs and an early human -- which according to evolutionary scientists are separated by tens of millions of years -- are displayed side-by-side in the main hall of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., Friday, March 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Madeleine Hordinski)

Replicas of dinosaurs and an early human -- which according to evolutionary scientists are separated by tens of millions of years -- are displayed side-by-side in the main hall of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., Friday, March 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Madeleine Hordinski)

Floyd was born in North Carolina. But his mother, a single parent, moved the family to Houston when he was 2, to search for work. They settled in the Cuney Homes, a low-slung warren of more than 500 apartments south of downtown nicknamed “The Bricks.”Brent Williams plays basketball in Houston’s Third Ward on Sunday, June 7, 2020, where George Floyd grew up. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)

Brent Williams plays basketball in Houston’s Third Ward on Sunday, June 7, 2020, where George Floyd grew up. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)The neighborhood, for decades a cornerstone of Houston’s Black community, has gentrified in recent years. Texas Southern University, a historically Black campus directly across the street from the projects, has long held itself out as a launchpad for those willing to strive. But many residents struggle, with incomes about half the city average and unemployment nearly four times higher, even before the recent economic collapse.Yeura Hall, who grew up next door to Floyd, said even in the Third Ward other kids looked down on those who lived in public housing. To deflect the teasing, he, Floyd and other boys made up a song about themselves: “I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Cuney Homes kid. They got so many rats and roaches I can play with.”

Larcenia Floyd invested her hopes in her son, who as a second-grader wrote that he dreamed of being a U.S. Supreme Court justice.“She thought that he would be the one that would bring them out of poverty and struggle,” said Travis Cains, a longtime friend.

Floyd was a star tight end for the football team at Jack Yates High School, playing for the losing side in the 1992 state championship game at Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin.

This undated handout photo provided by Christopher Harris shows him and George Floyd, right, in Minneapolis. (Christopher Harris via AP, File)The feeling, Rowell explains is, “Oh my God, I can be a ballet dancer through Drucilla, a pull-up-by-the-bootstraps kind of chick that’s rough around the edges and that can learn how to read and write, perhaps, and meet a Neil Winters and get married and improve her life.”

Rowell says she always understood her role as “so much bigger” than an acting job. She recalls meeting with the then-editor of Soap Opera Digest to advocate for a cover featuring the Black cast members — and it ended up happening.Rowell’s tenure with the show, though, has been up and down. She has only glowing things to say about Bell, who died in 2005. But

after she says she pushed for the casting of more Black actors and wasn’t hired back on the soap as a result. They later settled. After “Beyond the Gates” was announced, Rowell says she received a letter from CBS acknowledging her place in the show’s DNA.“I have been contacted with great respect from the powers that be at CBS, thanking me for all of my hard work, recognizing the work that I have done that has influenced this moment and I appreciate that,” she said.