Floyd’s legacy under fire 5 years after death

N’dea

Yancey-Bragg USA TODAY

Five years after her nephew’s murder, what Angela Harrelson misses most is hearing her phone buzz and knowing he was calling.

“He would call me and say, ‘What’s up, auntie? Just calling to check on you,’” Harrelson said. “And it made me feel so good.”

Harrelson affectionately refers to her nephew by his middle name, Perry, but the world knows him as George Floyd.

In 2020, millions watched in horror as former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pinned Floyd beneath his knee for 9 minutes and 29seconds. The death sparked a massive outpouring of grief and anger as protesters took to the streets with handcrafted signs echoing some of his last words, “I can’t breathe.” Amid violent clashes with police, they pressed on. Artists adorned their cities with his image, a sign of resolve and the impact of his death.

The intersection where Floyd took his last breaths was transformed from a gas station and corner store into a living memorial. Now that the chaos and media frenzy have settled, Harrelson visits the area − known as George Floyd Square − several times a week.

“It’s a safe haven for me to sit and reflect on everything that has happened,” she said. “And that includes the pain and the heartache.”

The future of the square has been a subject of heated debate. Across the nation, other memorials honoring Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement have been removed, vandalized or fallen into disrepair. As symbols of Floyd’s place in history have faded, so too have hopes for federal police reform; commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion; and American optimism about the future of racial justice.

Just days before the anniversary of his death, May 25, the Department of Justice announced it is ending investigations and retracting findings of wrongdoing against the Minneapolis Police Department as well as departments in Phoenix; Oklahoma City; Memphis, Tennessee; Trenton, New Jersey; Mount Vernon, New York; and the Louisiana State Police.

Family members and advocates are determined not to let the losses and the nation’s shifting political winds erase Floyd’s legacy. Many say preserving the last vestiges of the protest movement is a key part of continuing to push for change and recover from the deep pain caused by his death. Some say it’s a battle cry − a time to retrench and recommit to the fight.

“The country is actually regressing,” said Aba Blankson, a spokesperson for the NAACP. “So as we say, the anniversary is not about grief or recovering from the trauma. It is about purpose and being dedicated and recommitting to ensuring that the country is open to diversity, equity and inclusion, that the country continues to maintain equal protection under the law, that the country teaches truth in history, that the country is not diminishing the rights of women and immigrants.”

Future of square uncertain

Since his murder, George Floyd Square has become a sacred space.

Two iconic murals were painted at the site, including a blue-and-yellow tribute on the side of the Cup Foods where Floyd was accused of spending a counterfeit $20 bill, prompting the fatal police response. The community installed a raised-fist sculpture at the center of the intersection and headstones engraved with the names of Black people killed by police.

Residents erected barricades to keep traffic − and police − out until their demands for reform were met and to “figure out how to build this space as one of healing,” according to Ashley Tyner, co-director of “The People’s Way,” a documentary film about the square.

In 2021, the city removed the barricades and began to formulate a long-term plan for the area. Officials spent countless hours consulting with community members, in part, because one of the city’s busiest bus routes runs through the square.

“We knew as a city staff, as a community, that we needed to be incredibly thoughtful about this sacred space to create a vision that would be endured and appreciated for really decades and centuries,” said Alexander Kado, the city’s senior project manager.

They ended up with a proposal for a flexible, open layout that would allow traffic to flow unless officials closed part of the intersection for a special event.

The plan would preserve space for Floyd’s family to erect a permanent memorial in the spot where he took his last breaths and find someone to take over the former Speedway gas station, a property purchased by the city and dubbed the People’s Way.

But the Minneapolis City Council rejected the plan and proposed that the city explore another option instead: establishing a pedestrian mall that would permanently close one leg of the intersection.

Mayor Jacob Frey vetoed that proposal. The council voted to override Frey’s veto in February.

Council member Robin Wonsley said allowing traffic would “erase” the history of the square.

“The way in which the city is approaching that is saying, essentially, ‘Let’s run buses up and down that same street. Let’s run buses and cars across the very place where George Floyd was killed.’ And that, for me, is a signal of erasure,” Wonsley said during one City Council meeting.

But Andrea Jenkins, who represents the area and supports the city’s plan, said residents around the square want vehicle traffic. Jenkins pointed to a survey by the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs at the University of Minnesota that found about 70% of residents in the surrounding neighborhoods preferred full transportation access in the square.

For now, the fate of the square remains in limbo. A final decision won’t be made for months and construction likely won’t be complete until at least 2027.

Jenkins said she wants the space to be one where businesses, public transit and a national memorial to victims of police brutality can coexist.

“I would like it to be a space that honors the art and the artifacts that have been left at George Floyd Square, but also as a space for new work to be presented,” she said.

Floyd’s legacy

While some work to preserve memories of the movement, others have found symbolic and substantive ways to try and erase it. One by one, memorials to Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement have come down in recent years, including in Washington, D.C.; Des Moines; Indianapolis; Salt Lake City; Santa Barbara, California; and Asheville, North Carolina.

A push jump-started by Floyd’s death to remove or rename Confederate memorials has slowed to a trickle. In early 2024, only two had been removed, compared to nearly 170 in 2020, according to a recent report from the Southern Poverty Law Center. More than 2,000 Confederate symbols remain, and some have recently been restored, including the Confederate names of two Virginia schools that were changed during the racial reckoning of 2020. After the Supreme Court in 2023 struck down race-based affirmative action admissions at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the precedent has had far-reaching implications for the racial justice movement.

Citing the decision, President Donald Trump wiped out diversity initiatives across the federal government and urged schools and businesses to follow suit despite pledges made after Floyd’s murder.

The DOJ announced in January that it had reached a court-enforceable agreement known as a consent decree with the city of Minneapolis to make systemic changes to its police department after a federal investigation sparked by Floyd’s murder found a pattern of civil rights violations.

Contributing: Phillip M. Bailey and Savannah Kuchar, USA TODAY