Five Years After George Floyd’s Murder, America Grapples With Justice, Memory, Unfinished Fight

Nationwide gatherings honor Floyd’s life as activists condemn stalled reforms, political rollbacks

.Natalie C. Frank. Ph.D May 25. 2025

The George Floyd mural outside Cup Foods at Chicago Ave and E 38th St in Minneapolis, Minnesota Lorie Shaull/flickr [CC BY 2.0]

MINNEAPOLIS, MN - Five years after George Floyd’s murder ignited a global accounting of race and policing, thousands of people gathered across the country over the weekend in remembrance, and in frustration.

From solemn graveside ceremonies in Houston to gospel concerts and candlelight vigils in Minneapolis, the anniversary drew a cross-section of Americans: civil rights leaders, grassroots organizers, families looking to heal, and citizens who still believe in the possibility of lasting change.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, speaking alongside Floyd’s family at Houston Memorial Gardens, said Floyd’s killing was emblematic of a broader struggle for dignity and protection in America.

“Who are defenseless against people who thought they could put their knee on our neck,” he said, drawing a direct parallel to Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Black boy murdered in Mississippi in 1955.

“What Emmett Till was in his time, George Floyd has been for this time in history,” Sharpton told the crowd.

In Minneapolis, the center of memorial activities, was George Floyd Square, the intersection where former police officer Derek Chauvin pinned Floyd’s neck to the pavement for nine and a half minutes as Floyd pleaded, “I can’t breathe.”

Sunday afternoon, mourners filed past the memorial in front of Cup Foods, leaving flowers, signs, and quiet prayers. Across the street, activists served free meals from a repurposed gas station that has doubled as a hub for protest and community care since 2020. In the middle of the street, a fake pig’s head topped with a police cap made a stark statement about ongoing anger toward law enforcement.

The weekend’s programming began Friday with music performances, a street festival, and a “self-care fair” aimed at sustaining long-term activism. By Sunday evening, hundreds returned for a candlelit vigil, blending worship, gospel music, and passionate speeches with a brass band-led march through city streets.

Despite city officials’ repeated pledges to overhaul the Minneapolis Police Department, some community advocates say the reform is too slow to meet the urgency of the current environment.

“We understand that change takes time,” Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality, said in a statement last week. “However, the progress being claimed by the city is not being felt in the streets.”

The murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, sparked some of the largest demonstrations for racial justice in modern history, spanning continents and demanding major structural change. Activists hoped that moment would lead to sweeping national police reform and a larger cultural shift toward equity.

While the Biden administration’s Justice Department pushed hard for federal oversight of police departments accused of systemic misconduct, recent political moves have unsettled reform advocates. Last week, the Trump administration canceled consent decrees with Minneapolis and Louisville, agreements intended to overhaul policing in the wake of Floyd’s death and the killing of Breonna Taylor.

The administration has also begun eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in federal agencies, and is pressuring state and local institutions to follow suit. Republican-led states have accelerated their efforts to dismantle DEI initiatives in public schools and universities.

In Houston, Sharpton condemned the timing of the settlement cancellations, calling them “tantamount to the Department of Justice and the president spitting on the grave of George Floyd.”

“To wait to the anniversary and announce this, knowing this family was going to be brought back to the brokenheartedness of what happened shows the disregard and insensitivity of this administration,” Sharpton said. “But the reason that we will not be deterred is that Trump was president when George Floyd happened and he didn’t do anything then. We made things happen. And we’re going to make them happen again.”

For some attendees, this anniversary was about teaching the next generation what happened in 2020, and why it matters.

Detrius Smith, visiting the memorial site from Dallas with her three daughters and five grandchildren, shared the story of Floyd’s killing and the worldwide protests with one of her granddaughters.

“It just really feels good, just really to see everybody out here celebrating the life, and the memories of George Floyd and just really remembering what happened,” Smith said. “We want to do everything we can to work together so everybody can have the same equal rights and everybody can move forward and not have something like that to continue to happen in this nation.”

Others see the annual commemoration as a necessary reminder of how racism functions and how easily progress can stall.

Gail Ferguson, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development, returned to George Floyd Square as she has every year since 2020. Her work now includes leading an anti-racist parenting program for white parents of young white children.

“It exposed white supremacy, and it exposed the fragility and the passivity that can be part of the culture of whiteness,” Ferguson said.