The James Brown Funeral

[Clara Bow]

I was watching CNN yesterday and saw a good deal of James Brown's funeral. I was appalled at security. There was a hearse, limo, and a white carriage and horses (!) and there were throngs of people in the street surrounding the vehicles, screaming and pushing to get a better look. I was scared to death someone was going to get mowed down or trampled.
Now we all know that James Brown's music transcended the color line, something that wasn't always easy to do in his day, and that he was immensely popular with quite a few people as well as being a respected singer (personal habits being respectfully omitted, as he has passed). So wouldn't you think that there would be barricades up and more police protection so that people wouldn't be hurt? There were throngs at the Apollo, and in the street and I saw very few officers (though I was looking at tv and there is a distinct possibility that there were more police around and they just weren't visible....nor were they killing themselves on crowd control.

[Alida]

I think if there were more security, people would complain about that, too ("We were kept from him!")

[IndianInlaw]

Maybe they were keeping a low profile, with plainclothes police and uniformed officers on standby.

Who knows?

I'm sure though, it's exactly the kind of send off James would have wanted.

[Clara Bow]

Anyone who goes down in a gold casket drawn by white horses in a glass coach is not going for subtle, that's for sure! I thought it suited his style well, I just wondered about the potential for injury. Thanks goodness the crowd was pretty well behaved.

[Sleepingmediocre]

I think if there were more security, people would complain about that, too ("We were kept from him!")

I was in Augusta visiting family at the time of the funeral, and the local paper said that despite the lack of security, plenty of people DID complain about exactly that.  They managed to fit 8000 mourners inside the civic center, but still had to turn lots of people away--and those people were, naturally, upset about having to watch the funeral on big-screen TVs instead of in person.  I think "kept from him" was the exact phrasing at least one of them used.