Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. I'm always a little uncomfortable when a person

becomes an icon, you know, when their face gets painted up on mural walls or their image gets put on a

t-shirt with some slogan on it. Because I think when someone becomes an icon or a symbol, it's easy

to lose sight of them as an actual human, you know, a person. That's something today's book is

hoping to correct. It's titled, His Name is George Floyd. And it's written by these two Washington

Post reporters, Robert Samuels and Tolu Olorunipa,

who talked to hundreds of people to get at, who was George Floyd the man?

What was his life like?

And in this conversation with NPR's Adrian Florido, they talk about how the circumstances

that pushed George Floyd's life into being what it was could have happened

to any black man in America.

In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.

Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, sources and methods.

NPR reporters on the ground bring you

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Two years after his murder, most people still only know George Floyd for how he died under the knee of a police officer in Minneapolis.

Many don't know how he lived, that he habitually told friends that he loved them, often in all caps text messages,

that he was self-conscious about his six-foot six-inch frame, and that he suffered from lifelong claustrophobia,

that he and his roommate in Minneapolis

moved their mattresses into the living room right next to each other. They wanted to watch over each

other. They had met each other in rehab, and they wanted to help ensure that they didn't stray.

...