Forum from the Archives: Remembering George Floyd and the Racial Reckoning He Sparked

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 30 June 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We remember George Floyd, five years after his murder by a Minneapolis police officer. In the days and months after Floyd’s death, millions of Americans took to the streets to protest racism and police violence, ushering in a new era of racial reckoning. Robert Samuels, co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography “His Name is George Floyd,” wonders however if “the backlash feels more enduring than the reckoning itself.” We’ll talk about who George Floyd was and where the struggle for racial justice is headed. Guests: Robert Samuels, national political enterprise reporter, The Washington Post - co-author, "His Name is George Floyd: One Man's Life and them Struggle for Racial Justice" Clyde McGrady, national correspondent covering race, The New York Times Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:57.3	dash insurance to learn more. From KQBD in San Francisco, I'm Nina Kim. Coming up on forum, we look at where the struggle for racial progress stands five years after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
1:29.8	The brutality of that moment prompted millions of Americans and many around the world to take to
1:34.5	the streets to protest racism and police violence. Robert Samuels joined us last month to contemplate
1:41.0	the backlash to that racial reckoning of 2020 and where the fight for racial justice goes from here.
1:47.2	Samuels is the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning book. His name is George Floyd. Forum is next.
2:18.5	Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. Five years ago, this month, we were just a couple months in to the start of the coronavirus pandemic. We were still reeling from the killing of Ahmad Arbery, who was shot while jogging during the day in a Georgia suburb, and from the police killing in her home of Brianna Taylor, a Kentucky medical worker.
2:26.0	Then on May 25th, a horrified crowd watched as a white Minneapolis police officer kneeled for
2:31.5	more than nine minutes on the neck of George Floyd, a 46-year-old
2:35.4	black man. Listeners, what do you remember about that time and the effect that moment had on
2:40.5	you? Robert Samuels, who co-authored with Tulu Olorunipa, the Pulitzer Prize winning biography,
2:46.7	his name is George Floyd, is with us to mark five years since Floyd's murder.
	...

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