Looking Back at the Year of Protest Since the Death of George Floyd

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 1 June 2021

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We look back on the year since the murder of George Floyd galvanized the nation. David Remnick talks with Vanita Gupta, the No. 3 official in the Justice Department, who is charged with delivering on President Biden’s bold promises to address racial injustice. A Minneapolis activist explains why it is so hard to abolish the police. Plus, Hilton Als on why America finally rose up against long-standing abuses of Black people.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:08.0	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
0:20.0	This week we've marked one year since the death of George Floyd. Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
0:24.6	This week, we've marked one year since the death of George Floyd.
0:29.2	His murder, one in a seemingly endless list of police killings,
0:35.0	ushered this country into what seems to be a new era in the fight for racial justice.
0:38.0	In those first days of the protests last year,
0:41.7	we reached out to the activist group MPD-150,
0:44.8	which has been looking critically at policing in Minneapolis,
0:47.6	and we heard from a man named Tony Williams about what was happening on the ground there.
0:50.2	Now, a year later,
0:51.8	I wanted to talk with them again
0:53.4	about their push for abolition of the police department.
0:56.5	And an organizer named Sheila Najat is affiliated with MPD 150, and she's running for mayor now in the city of Minneapolis.
1:05.5	I live just a few blocks away from where George Floyd was murdered.
1:11.6	So I was out there in the street the first day when people were gathering,
1:16.6	and it was, people were still unsure with COVID,
1:21.6	and we hadn't, hadn't been outside, had it been to a demonstration.
1:25.6	And so we were standing on the sidewalk holding signs.
1:30.7	I remember the police rolling into this protest.
1:35.4	And I was thinking, oh, they're going to be on their best behavior.
1:39.8	One of their co-workers just killed a black man and instead they came out of their cars with their
	...

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