In The Birthplace Of The Civil Rights Motion, What Modified In The 12 months Since George Floyd’s Homicide?

Posted by Ashley Norwood, Mississippi Public Broadcasting

On May 25, 2021, a year after a police officer killed George Floyd, chants of “No Justice, No Peace” and “I Can’t Breathe” filled the air at Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham, Ala activists gathered around them last year Time.

“I was in the exact same place fighting for George Floyd’s justice,” said Satura Dudley, 21, executive director of Social Justice Group Cell A65. “Obviously the trial happened. We supposedly got justice. It’s not really fair when he’s already dead. “

Floyd’s death after nine minutes under the knee of a cop inspired 21-year-old Dudley to become an activist.

“Last year, I really just came to a protest, to come to a protest,” said Dudley. “And now I am helping to lead a movement.”

This event is one of the few vigils and marches held this week in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. But the birthplace of the civil rights movement has not seen as much action in the year since Floyd’s death as in other parts of the country.

A protest in downtown Jackson, Miss., Last summer got thousands marching from the governor’s mansion to town hall calling for change. A year later, after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murder, there is a lot of work going on behind the scenes. But in Jackson and many other parts of the region, the streets are quiet.

A call to action

Kobee Vance

Thousands of protesters march through downtown Jackson, Miss. After police kill George Floyd in Minneapolis. June 8, 2020.

The murder of George Floyd was a moment of reckoning that led many young people in the South to stand up for racial justice.

“For many other people of color and many white people, the George Floyd case was a pivotal moment in their understanding of police brutality and a better understanding of the black experience in America,” said Maisie Brown, 19, lead organizer of the Jackson Black Lives Matter protest that year 2020.

A poll by nonprofit group E Pluribus Unum this week found that southerners – regardless of race – have overwhelming support for major police reforms. The 1,200-person poll found some racial and political disparities, but the majority of respondents don’t believe lawmakers have done enough since the murder of George Floyd.

President Joe Biden had set a May 25 deadline for the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which includes reforms such as a ban on chokeholds. It passed the House of Representatives in March but got stuck in the Senate. Floyd’s family is urging lawmakers to pass laws they believe will protect black men and women.

Some activists point to the removal of Confederate symbols across the region and Alabama law allowing medical marijuana as a sign of progress.

But Brown said she wants to see a lot more.

“I don’t think there has been nearly as many aggressive police reforms as there should be now,” Brown said. “I think justice looks like we don’t have George Floyds anymore.”

Beyond George Floyd

Mississippi has its own case of a black man dying after an officer kneeled on him. Robert Loggins died in 2018 while incarcerated in Grenada County Jail, Mississippi. The state initially called the death an accident. Calls for an investigation came after the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting received a video from prison showing an officer placing his knee over Loggin’s neck or head.

“These deaths in custody represent a stain on the fabric of this land that we love and love, and so this family wants to help shut it down, especially for the justice of Robert Loggins,” said Jacob Jordan, the attorney who led the Family of loggins.

Another family is fighting for justice for Ronald Greene in neighboring Louisiana. He died after a police chase in 2019. White soldiers initially blamed his death for the effects of a crash. Graphic body cam footage captured by the Associated Press last month shows officers repeatedly using stun guns on Greene, beating him and pulling on his ankle cuffs.

Decades ago, civil rights activist Hezekiah Watkins, who was a Freedom Rider in the 1960s, was arrested more than a hundred times.

“Every time I was arrested I was scared because you can never tell when you got into a situation, whether you would return,” said Watkins. “That fear is still there.”

Now he works at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, which has his own mug shot on the wall.