When I arrived in Minneapolis, the one thing that I knew I 100% wanted to go see was the famous, original George Floyd mural. Ya’ll know I love street art. This is arguably the most famous mural in the world right now, so I had to make the pilgrimage. I had some vague awareness that there would be some remnants from the protests around it… but I was not prepared for what I found here.

George Floyd Square was one of the most powerful places I have ever visited. I’m not sure how long it will stay in its current form… but I hope some sort of city ordinance intervenes to preserve it this way forever. Let me show you what I saw here.

Context: WHat Happened to George Floyd?

On May 25, 2020, a convenience store clerk called 911 claiming that a black man had attempted to buy cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill. The Minneapolis police officers who responded to the scene proceeded to murder that man by kneeling on his neck for almost 10 minutes. A small crowd watched in horror as the man repeatedly cried out that he couldn’t breathe, before eventually going silent and motionless. The whole thing was caught on video. That man’s name was George Floyd.

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of years, here are a few detailed accounts of these events from History.com, Wikipedia, The New York Times, Justice.gov, BBC, and the Associated Press. This event sparked one of the largest protest movements in American history. The internet and social media blew up. If you were online, there was no hiding from this. There were violent riots in every major city across America, the damage from which is still being cleaned up to this day. And the police officer responsible for Floyd’s death was swiftly convicted of murder, to the applause of hundreds of millions.

Walking Through George Floyd Square

My visit to “George Floyd Square,” as it is now called, came about 2 years after Floyd’s murder. When the murder actually occurred, my little brother had recently signed a lease for an apartment just around the corner from this place. He moved into that apartment in the thick of the protests. As time passed, through him I maintained a vague awareness that, in spite of the protests subsiding, there was still a memorial of sorts maintained at the site of his murder. In retrospect, it is clear that I did not grasp the gravity of what was actually happening on the ground here.

The convenience store where Floyd was murdered—Cup Foods—is now a full-time historical monument. The Speedway gas station across the street was painted over to say “People’s-way” during the protest and has now also become an apparently-permanent part of this monument. The surrounding streets, which had been impassable during the actual protest, remained empty even after the crowds had receded. A volunteer army of vigilante community members organized to patrol this area enforcing a car-free zone. In place of cars, an organic semi-permanent community festival continued (continues?) year-round. And down the street from the convenience store, an apparently-permanent art installation known as the ‘Say Their Names’ Cemetery has sprung up in a nearby park, courtesy of artists Connor Wright and Anna Barber. This Cemetery contains symbolic gravestones for 100 victims of police violence against the black community. It’s a really powerful place to visit.

Now I’ll share a few photos I took during my walk up Chicago Ave., to the corner of E 37th Street, where George Floyd was murdered. In the oppressive summer heat and humidity, the relative quiet of these city streets really seemed to intensify as we approached Cup Foods. There were local community members serving food and passing out pamphlets along this street, who all seemed to be in good spirits, but I was struggling to maintain my own social normalcy. Visiting this place was an intense experience for me. I’d be interested to know if other visitors are as affected by this place as I was.

There’s the famous George Floyd mural, along with an assortment of other street art that has sprung up. Credit for the original George Floyd mural goes to local artists Cadex Herrera, Greta McLain, and Xena Goldman.

Directly across the street from Cup Foods, is the Speedway People’sway, which also holds a number of art installations that have—thus far—proven permanent. However, word on the street is that the city of Minneapolis has plans to demolish this gas station and build some sort of racial healing center in its place. Here are a few pictures of this place as it stands today:

And then there’s the actual George Floyd memorial, directly in front of the Cup Foods storefront. This is where the murder actually took place. When I work on articles for this website, I do my best to abide by the rules that would apply to a “real” photojournalist—at least, to the best of my understanding… but sometimes that makes me feel pretty uncomfortable. This was one of those times. I was starting to feel like a real asshole for taking pictures of this place. It felt irreverent. But then again, the power of this place is that it forced America to look this problem in the face. It made everybody feel uncomfortable, and I think that was—and will continue to be—for the best. I would argue that it would be in the public interest for everybody in America to spend some uncomfortable time here. But for now, you’ll have to settle for these pictures.

Those are all the pictures I took during my visit to George Floyd Square in the summer of 2022. This is what this place happened to look like on a random summer day, long after the fact. But to give you a sense of the permanence of this place over the past few years, my brother gave me some of the photos he took here during the initial protests and throughout the aftermath. At the time, there was a lot of paranoia that protesters who appeared in photographs were going to be targeted in some way by law enforcement; hence the black bars over people’s faces. Thankfully, protestors did not face any retaliation (to the best of my knowledge), but those black bars are an interesting relic of the time. The world was feeling pretty dystopian. It still feels dystopian some days, but in the thick of the George Floyd protests and the pandemic, it was uniquely overwhelming.

Peter’s Perspective

This is a bit of a nonsequitur, but I promise it will come back around. I’m going to make a recommendation for further education. I would HIGHLY recommend a podcast called "Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History.” I will warn you that the episodes are a commitment (they are like 5-6 hours long) BUT they are very worth the listen. He has done series on World War I (“Blueprint for Armageddon”) and the Pacific Theatre of World War II (“Supernova in the East”) that have fundamentally changed the way I view the world—especially the World War I piece. Each of them was like 30+ hours of listening, so it took me months to get through each of them, but through those months, I have become a big fan. And I think I do a killer Dan Carlin impression now, which will reliably make a very small group of people laugh.

ANYWAY, he just recently put out a 1-off episode on the Atlantic slave trade that—again—has done a lot to help shape my worldview. Admittedly, it is, in essence, just a white guy talking about the history of slavery for almost 6 hours straight, but it is a WEALTH of information that most of us would never hear otherwise. He goes DEEP. And although it’s hard not to experience strong feelings with obvious political implications as you listen to this centuries-long horror story, I think Dan does a good job of being pretty apolitical, and simply presenting the information as a historian. Here’s a link to the piece on Spotify. I HIGHLY recommend it.

All that to say, at this point in my life, I am seeing places like George Floyd Square with more historical context than ever before. It’s easy to listen to historical pieces like this and separate “then” from “now” in your mind, but the truth is that they are one and the same. This is all part of the same story, and in 200 years, the next generation of historians will tell it that way.

Listening to detailed accounts of the atrocities that African slaves had to endure, it’s natural to get really angry and uncomfortable. When you really learn what all of this was actually like… the cultural and generational trauma is just immense. It’s like a horror movie. And these aren’t just people in history; these are literally the family members of people that you and I know personally—friends, neighbors, coworkers, classmates, etc. It should be emphasized how incredibly close we are to all of this ugliness. It wasn’t that long ago! There are millions of people walking around today for whom, this is not ancient history—this actively informs their present-day reality

How does a person—or a community, or family—even begin to heal from something like this? When I really start to think about it, I want to cry.

Looking around American society today, all of this context makes it easy to understand why the economic and social realities are so unequal across different racial groups. And then, in the midst of what can sometimes feel like a hopeless situation, you see George Floyd crying out for help, with an officer’s knee on his neck???

That’s some evil shit.

I like to attempt to end my articles with some sort of grand insight… but in this instance, I think the takeaway is pretty obvious. We’ve got work to do.