George Floyd remembered around the world on the one year anniversary of his murder

One year ago today, George Floyd was sense­less­ly mur­dered in Min­neapo­lis by indi­vid­u­als who had sworn an oath to serve and protect.

Today, peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions across the Unit­ed States and around the world are remem­ber­ing George Floyd and many oth­er Black peo­ple who have been wrong­ful­ly killed by law enforce­ment or while in police cus­tody, from Bre­on­na Tay­lor to Manuel Ellis to Eric Gar­ner and San­dra Bland.

“George Floyd was mur­dered one year ago today,” said Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma. “Since then, hun­dreds more Amer­i­cans have died in encoun­ters with police— par­ents, sons, daugh­ters, friends tak­en from us far too soon.”

“But the last year has also giv­en us rea­sons to hope. Today, more peo­ple in more places are see­ing the world more clear­ly than they did a year ago.”

“It’s a trib­ute to all those who decid­ed that this time would be different—and that they, in their own ways, would help make it different.”

“When injus­tice runs deep, progress takes time,” Oba­ma con­clud­ed. “But if we can turn words into action and action into mean­ing­ful reform, we will, in the words of James Bald­win, ‘cease flee­ing from real­i­ty and begin to change it.’”

“Today, the Pres­i­dent and I met with the fam­i­ly of Mr. George Floyd,” said Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Har­ris, the first Black woman to serve as Vice Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States. “Mr. Floyd should be alive today. He should be with his fam­i­ly who con­tin­ue to show courage, grace, and resilience.”

“One year ago, a cell­phone video revealed to the coun­try what Black Amer­i­cans have known to be true for gen­er­a­tions. The ver­dict find­ing Derek Chau­vin guilty of mur­der pro­vid­ed some mea­sure of justice.”

“But one ver­dict does not address the per­sis­tent issue of police mis­con­duct and use of exces­sive force. It does not take away the Floyd family’s pain, nor the pain of all those fam­i­lies who have griev­ed the untime­ly loss of a loved one.”

“We need to do more,” the Vice Pres­i­dent continued.

“After Mr. Floyd was mur­dered, Sen­a­tor Cory Book­er, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Karen Bass, and I intro­duced the Jus­tice in Polic­ing Act to hold law enforce­ment account­able and build trust between law enforce­ment and the com­mu­ni­ties it serves. Con­gress must move swift­ly and act with a sense of urgency. Pass­ing leg­is­la­tion will not bring back those lives lost, but it will rep­re­sent much need­ed progress.”

“We must address racial injus­tice wher­ev­er it exists. That is the work ahead.”

“Although it has been one year since their beloved broth­er and father was mur­dered, for the fam­i­ly – for any fam­i­ly expe­ri­enc­ing a pro­found loss – the first year can still feel like they got the news a few sec­onds ago,” said Pres­i­dent Joe Biden. “And they’ve had to relive that pain and grief each and every time those hor­rif­ic nine min­utes and twen­ty-nine sec­onds have been replayed.

“Yet the Floyd fam­i­ly has shown extra­or­di­nary courage, espe­cial­ly his young daugh­ter Gian­na, who I met again today. The day before her father’s funer­al a year ago, Jill and I met the fam­i­ly and she told me, Dad­dy changed the world.”

“He has. His mur­der launched a sum­mer of protest we hadn’t seen since the Civ­il Rights era in the ‘60s – protests that peace­ful­ly uni­fied peo­ple of every race and gen­er­a­tion to col­lec­tive­ly say enough of the sense­less killings.”

“Last month’s con­vic­tion of the police offi­cer who mur­dered George was anoth­er impor­tant step for­ward toward jus­tice. But our progress can’t stop there.”

“To deliv­er real change, we must have account­abil­i­ty when law enforce­ment offi­cers vio­late their oaths, and we need to build last­ing trust between the vast major­i­ty of the men and women who wear the badge hon­or­ably and the com­mu­ni­ties they are sworn to serve and pro­tect. We can and must have both account­abil­i­ty and trust and in our jus­tice system.”

“The nego­ti­a­tions on the George Floyd Jus­tice in Polic­ing Act in Con­gress are ongo­ing. I have strong­ly sup­port­ed the leg­is­la­tion that passed the House, and I appre­ci­ate the good-faith efforts from Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans to pass a mean­ing­ful bill out of the Sen­ate. It’s my hope they will get a bill to my desk quick­ly. We have to act. We face an inflec­tion point. The bat­tle for the soul of Amer­i­ca has been a con­stant push and pull between the Amer­i­can ide­al that we’re all cre­at­ed equal and the harsh real­i­ty that racism has long torn us apart.”

“At our best, the Amer­i­can ide­al wins out. It must again.”

“We are encour­aged by the tens of thou­sands across the coun­try who expressed sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Black com­mu­ni­ty in the wake of George Floyd’s death and those who con­tin­ue to do so,” said Nation­al Alliance on Men­tal Ill­ness CEO Daniel H. Gilli­son Jr. “We are relieved by steps tak­en toward account­abil­i­ty through the con­vic­tion of ex-police offi­cer Derek Chau­vin. We are even hope­ful for more change as we see our nation con­tin­ue con­ver­sa­tions about racial disparities.”

“But we are also still frus­trat­ed, know­ing the sys­temic issues that enabled this tragedy remain. We are still griev­ing, know­ing noth­ing can tru­ly rec­ti­fy the loss of anoth­er Black life, which could have eas­i­ly been our own, a fam­i­ly mem­ber or a friend. More than any­thing, we feel the exhaus­tion from the racial trau­ma that con­tin­ues to neg­a­tive­ly impact our phys­i­cal and men­tal health.”

“Here at NAMI, we rec­og­nize that there are no quick and easy solu­tions to the sys­temic racism that has per­me­at­ed every aspect of our soci­ety for far too long. Today, only one in three Black adults who need men­tal health care receive it.”

“But we are com­mit­ted to keep striv­ing toward more equi­table and just prac­tices with­in our own orga­ni­za­tion and with­in the men­tal health community.”

“That’s why over the last year we have cre­at­ed and bol­stered our Jus­tice, Equi­ty, Diver­si­ty, and Inclu­sion work, increased the amount of Black men­tal health resources on our web­site, host­ed a series of Help Not Hand­cuffs webi­na­rs, and cham­pi­oned leg­is­la­tion that will allow indi­vid­u­als in men­tal health crises an alter­na­tive to a 911 law enforce­ment response for support.”

“And that’s why we have inten­tion­al­ly inte­grat­ed anti-racist ini­tia­tives into our five-year strate­gic plan. We can­not ignore the inter­sec­tion of race, iden­ti­ty and men­tal health. And we are deter­mined to do our part in dis­man­tling bar­ri­ers to access­ing cul­tur­al­ly com­pe­tent resources for every indi­vid­ual in our country.”

Here are a few well writ­ten sto­ries reflect­ing on this somber anniver­sary as well as the progress — and lack of progress — since George’s mur­der a year ago:

• The Wash­ing­ton Post: George Floyd’s fam­i­ly marks a year since his death shocked the nation, as goal for polic­ing over­haul slips
• The New York Times: ‘On the ash­es of tragedy’: Mixed emo­tions on anniver­sary of George Floyd’s death
• The Min­neapo­lis Star-Tri­bune: ‘A liv­ing memo­r­i­al’: Min­neapo­lis, world remem­ber George Floy­d’s life, death
• Politi­co: Floyd fam­i­ly express­es hope for tough police reform after meet­ings with Biden and lawmakers
• The Los Ange­les Times: On anniver­sary of George Floyd’s death, L.A. ral­ly declares, ‘Black lives mat­ter everywhere’
• The Atlantic: George Floyd’s mur­der changed Amer­i­cans’ views on policing
• The Nation: In the wake of George Floyd
• The New York­er: George Floyd, the Tul­sa Mas­sacre, and Memo­r­i­al Days
• The Guardian: Teen who filmed George Floyd’s death speaks out

Events hon­or­ing Floyd took place in loca­tions thou­sands of miles away from Min­neapo­lis, includ­ing Scot­land and Berlin, as you can see from this pho­to slideshow put togeth­er by the news staff of The Wall Street Jour­nal.

Inter­na­tion­al broad­cast­ers have also been cov­er­ing the anniver­sary, includ­ing Al Jazeera, the BBC, and France 24.

NPI again extends its sin­cer­est con­do­lences to the Floyd fam­i­ly and all of George’s friends on the anniver­sary of his deplorable mur­der. We agree that the best way we can hon­or his mem­o­ry is to take action. And while the George Floyd Jus­tice in Polic­ing Act does need to be passed, we should be doing more than just advo­cat­ing for fed­er­al leg­is­la­tion to ensure that Black Lives Matter.

In Wash­ing­ton State, leg­is­la­tors and Gov­er­nor Inslee have adopt­ed a pack­age of new laws that will make police more account­able to the com­mu­ni­ties they serve.

There is much more to do, but this is a sig­nif­i­cant start. We also sore­ly need more action at the local lev­el, espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing that most law enforce­ment agen­cies are admin­is­tered by cities and coun­ties. King Coun­ty is in the process of begin­ning the tran­si­tion to an appoint­ed sher­iff, which is good, but its neigh­bor­ing char­ter coun­ties still have right wing sher­iffs (Adam Fort­ney, Ed Troy­er) who have vio­lat­ed their oaths and ought to be prompt­ly removed from their positions.

As Pres­i­dent Oba­ma observed, dis­man­tling racist sys­tems isn’t some­thing that can usu­al­ly be done overnight. Progress often takes time, espe­cial­ly in a coun­try as large as the Unit­ed States. We must be mind­ful, how­ev­er, that jus­tice delayed is  jus­tice denied. Peo­ple who are being oppressed are tired of wait­ing to be lib­er­at­ed from racist sys­tems and oppres­sors who per­pet­u­ate them.

We must be the change we wish to see, and com­mit our­selves to strate­gic ini­tia­tives for racial jus­tice and cli­mate jus­tice that pro­vide the most help and relief to the most peo­ple as soon as human­ly possible.

Let’s do all we can in the time we have togeth­er to ensure we don’t pass on the same soci­etal inequities that we inher­it­ed to the next generation.