Revisiting 'The Life of George Floyd'

Post Reports

The Washington Post

Daily News, Politics, News

4.4 • 5.1K Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2021

⏱️ ? minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today, we’re re-airing this special episode of “Post Reports,” where we tell the story of George Floyd’s life, his upbringing and how racism hobbled his ambition. Plus, an update from Floyd’s family members after the trial of Derek Chauvin.

Last fall, the Post Reports staff and a team of reporters at The Post worked on an exhaustive telling of George Floyd’s life, about this one man and his family and the forces of systemic racism that shaped their experiences over the course of more than a century.

This week, in the aftermath of the Chauvin trial verdict, we are re-airing this story about George Floyd, to remind people about the real three-dimensional person whose life and death were at the center of the trial. We also went back to some of the people interviewed in the original episode to find out what they think about the verdict, and how they have been processing their grief almost a year after his death.

This story is part of The Washington Post’s series “George Floyd’s America.” The reporting explores the institutional and societal roadblocks Floyd encountered as a Black man from his birth in 1973 until his death, and the role systemic racism played throughout his life. The series is based on a review of thousands of documents and more than 150 interviews with Floyd’s friends, colleagues, public officials and scholars. The picture that emerges is one that underscores how systemic racism has calcified within many of America’s institutions, creating sharply disparate outcomes in housing, education, the economy, law enforcement and health care.

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Credits Reporting for this episode from Ted Muldoon. “George Floyd’s America” was reported by Arelis Hernández, Tracy Jan, Laura Meckler, Tolu Olorunnipa, Robert Samuels, Griff Witte and Cleve Wootson. This “Post Reports” episode was produced by Ted Muldoon and Linah Mohammad and edited by Maggie Penman and Martine Powers.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports.
0:08.8	I'm Martin Powers.
0:10.3	It's Friday, April 30th.
0:12.8	I just want to say, man, I got my shortcomings and my flaws.
0:22.8	I ain't better than nobody else.
0:25.4	But, man, the shooting's is going on, man.
0:27.7	I'll care.
0:28.7	I'm from man, where you at, man?
0:30.6	I love you and God love you, man.
0:32.7	Put them guns down, man.
0:34.4	They ain't with these.
0:35.7	You know, go up this, man.
0:37.4	They y'all over y'all head of, man.
0:39.2	You got parents like you, sending plates, man, trying to bury their keys, man.
0:43.3	Think about it, man.
0:44.6	Look at y'all.
0:46.9	When I heard this recording of George Floyd last year, it was the first time that I had
0:52.8	ever heard his voice.
0:55.0	And, I mean, not his voice in the video that captured his death 11 months ago, but just
1:00.5	him talking in, like, a regular way.
1:03.4	George Floyd!
1:04.4	George Floyd!
	...

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