Americans remember George Floyd on the fifth anniversary of his death

Americans throughout the country remember that he George Floyd five years after being killed by the police, with special meetings in the city where he grew up and the one where he died.

The murder of Floyd, a black man, in Minneapolis by police officer Derek Chauvin led to national protests against racism and police violence.

On Sunday, Floyd’s family gathered in their hometown Houston near Floyd’s Gravesite for an event under the leadership of the Reverend Al Sharpton, while Minneapolis held different commemorations.

What many were praised as a national “settlement” with racism after Floyd’s death seems to fade when President Donald Trump starts to reverse the police reforms in Minneapolis and other cities.

In Minneapolis, community members had planned a morning church service, a candlelight vigil and an evening gospel concert on Sunday to remember Floyd.

The events were part of the annual Rise and Remember festival that took place at George Floyd Square, the intersection where Floyd was murdered and which has since been called to honor him.

“This is the time for the people to get up and continue the good work that we started,” said Angela Harrelson, Floyd’s aunt and co-chairman of the rise and memories of non-profit, in a statement about the festival.

In Houston, where Floyd grew up and where he is buried, local organizations have poetry sessions, musical versions and speeches planned by local pastors.

Floyd was murdered in 2020 during a police arrest in Minneapolis when Chauvin, a white police officer, was in his neck for more than nine minutes.

The murder – recorded on the telephone camera of a bystander – led to global indignation and a wave of demonstrations against racial injustice and police use of violence.

Chauvin has broadcast a 22-year prison sentence after he was convicted of killing the 46-year-old. Other officers were convicted of not intervening in the murder.

In a post on X, Rev Sharpton said that the death of Floyd “had forced a long -awaited statement with systemic racism and had raced millions of millions to take to the streets”.

“The conviction of the responsible officer was a rare step in the direction of justice, but our work is far from over,” he said.

In the aftermath of the death of Floyd, under former President Joe Biden, the Ministry of Justice opened civilian investigations into various local law enforcement agencies, including Minneapolis, Louisville, Phoenix and Lexington, Mississippi, where researchers found evidence of systemic police -whanged amount.

The Department reached agreements with both the police departments of Louisville and the Minneapolis, including supervisory measures such as improved training, accountability and improved data collection of police activities.

But last Wednesday the Trump administration said that those findings were dependent on “inadequate methods and incomplete data”.

Administration officials said that the agreement was “handcuffs” local police services.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, however, said this week that his city would still “meet every sentence, of every section, of the consent decision of 169 pages that we have signed this year”.

Since the return to the office, Trump has also focused on Diversity Equity & Inclusion (dei) measures that are intended to reduce racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. Early in his term of office, Trump signed an executive order to eliminate the dei policy in the federal government, some of which were the result of protests during what is often called “Black Lives Matter Summer”, held after the death of Floyd and others,

Critics including Trump say that such programs themselves can be discriminatory. He spoke to West Point on Saturday that in the end of Dei in the army he “had lost the distractions” and “our army focused on his core mission”.

In the meantime, the mayor of Washington, Muriel Bowser, Black Lives Matter Plaza, removed a strip that was decorated with the sense of the White House. This week a famous mural by Floyd in Houston was destroyed as part of a demolition of the building, according to Houston’s public media.

Recent surveys suggest that Americans believe that there have been few improvements for the lives of black people in the US five years after the death of Floyd, including a May questionnaire From Pew Research Center in which 72% of the participants said there had been no meaningful changes.

The number of Americans who expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement has also fallen by 15% since June 2020, the same survey suggests.