George Perry Floyd Square 38th and Chicago | |
Former name(s) | George Perry Floyd Jr. Place |
---|---|
Part of | Powderhorn community |
Namesake | George Floyd |
Type | Commemorative street |
Owner | City of Minneapolis |
Length | Two city blocks |
Addresses | Chicago Avenue |
Location | Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States |
Postal code | 55407 |
Coordinates | 44°56′03″N93°15′45″W / 44.9343°N 93.2624°W |
From | East 37th Street (north) |
Major junctions | East 38th Street |
To | East 39th Street (south) |
Construction | |
Inauguration | May 25, 2022 |
Other | |
Known for |
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Website | minneapolismn.gov |
George Floyd Square, officially George Perry Floyd Square, is the commemorative street name for the section of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in the U.S. city of Minneapolis from East 37th Street to East 39th Street. It is named after George Floyd, a black man who was murdered there by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on May 25, 2020. The streetway and memorial site is centered at the 38th and Chicago intersection.
Public outrage over Floyd's murder resulted in the largest mass protest movement since the civil rights movement, largely over issues of systemic racism and police brutality. In the following weeks, racial justice activists and some community members erected barricades to keep 38th and Chicago street intersection closed to vehicular traffic for over a year during 2020 and 2021. Artists and demonstrators installed several exhibits, paintings, sculptures, and other works of art to memorialize Floyd and visualize racial justice themes.
The City of Minneapolis officially designated the streetway in Floyd's honor in 2022, [1] and has been planning for an official, permanent memorial to Floyd at the site. [2]
Chicago Avenue is a major north–south thorough fare in Minneapolis. It was named Ames Street in an 1855 city plat map. Sometime in the late 1880s, the Minneapolis City Council changed the name of Ames Street to Chicago Avenue, but historians are unsure exactly when or why the street was renamed. [3] Chicago Avenue intersects East 38th Street in the city's Powderhorn community. The 38th and Chicago street intersection is a border for several city neighborhoods: Bancroft, Bryant, Central, and Powderhorn Park. [4] [5]
The East 38th Street and Chicago Avenue intersection was the location of the murder of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin, an officer with the Minneapolis Police Department. Chauvin, a White man, knelt on the neck of Floyd, an unarmed Black man, for about 9 minutes and 29 seconds while Floyd begged for help, said he could not breathe, lost consciousness, and died on May 25, 2020. The incident, which occurred in the street outside the Cup Foods store, was filmed by bystanders and circulated widely in the media. [6] [7] In reaction to Floyd's murder, protests began locally on May 26, 2020, and gave way to widespread civil unrest. After several days, the Black Lives Matter movement protests spread throughout the United States and to many other countries.
Soon after Floyd's murder, people left memorials to him near the Cup Foods store. The street intersection soon transitioned to an occupation protest referred to as George Floyd Square, as racial justice activists and some community members erected barricades to block vehicular traffic . [8] [9] The physical occupation of the street intersection after Floyd's murder persisted for over a year, but it was not without controversy. [10] [11] Some local businesses objected to the street closure and some neighbors felt perceptions that the area was "autonomous" or police-free led to an increase in violent crime. [12] [13] Vehicular traffic resumed through the street intersection on June 20, 2021. [14] [15]
In September 2020, the city named the two-block section of Chicago Avenue from East 37th Street (northern end) to East 39th Street (southern end) as "George Perry Floyd Jr. Place". The city again renamed the street way as "George Perry Floyd Square", with an inauguration ceremony taking place on May 25, 2022, the second anniversary of Floyd's murder. [1] [16] [17]
Minneapolis officials designated the broader East 38th Street corridor as one of seven city cultural districts in late 2020. As part of the cultural district's long-term design plan, officials sought to preserve public art installments at the 38th and Chicago intersection that emerged in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder. [18] The City of Minneapolis stated in mid 2021 that it would work with the local community to establish a permanent memorial at the street intersection. [19] In 2022, the City of Minneapolis began a process to "re-envision" the streets of 38th Street East and Chicago Avenue to permanently incorporate memorials to George Floyd and make transportation improvements. [2] [20] The regional Metro Transit authority removed a previously planned rapid bus stop on the METRO D Line at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, but said they would engage with the community on future plans for the area. [21]
Amongst the protest occupation and permanent memorial planning, incidents of violent crime at the square area led to broader public discussion about public safety and policing. [22] By August 14, 2022, six people had been killed by gun violence at the square since Floyd's murder, [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] and one person had died there as the result of a drug overdose. [29] The city purchased the abandoned Speedway gas station at the intersection that had been used as an informal community gathering space. In late 2023, city officials announced a timeline to gather community input on a permanent memorial and redesign of the area with implementation and construction taking place in 2026 and beyond. [30]
George Floyd Square has hosted thousands of visitors from around the world. [31] Caretakers for the memorial do not view the site as a tourist destination, but as a place for reflection about issues of racism and injustice. [32] The site has been likened to other monuments of historic trauma, such as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., and the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. [33] [34]
The Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center occupies the space of the historic Nokomis Theater on the 3700 block of Chicago Avenue. The building was originally constructed in 1915 and designed by architect Joseph E. Nason. The theater was expanded in 1928 and remained for several decades until it closed in 1952 along with the Chicago Avenue streetcar line. [35] The structure was significantly altered and was later used as an automobile repair shop until the building and many original architectural details were restored in the 2000s. [36] The arts center was founded in 2007 by residents in the Central and Bryant neighborhoods with the goal to increase equity in public art. By 2020, the center was serving 800 artists per year. [37] [38]
Cup Foods, located on the 3700 block of Chicago Avenue, opened in 1989 as a combination grocery store, convenience store, and restaurant in the Powderhorn community in Minneapolis. [39] Cup Foods was founded by Samir Abumayyaleh, who was born in Palestine and emigrated to the United States as a child. [40] The name of the store was originally Chicago Unbeatable Prices, but later shortened to CUP. [40] The area around the store had also been the location of violent crime, illicit drug dealing, loitering, and undercover police surveillance since the 1990s. [41] In 2000, the city temporarily shut the store down for several months after recovering stolen electronics, ammunition, and materials for illicit drugs inside Cup Foods–leading to a constant police presence around the property. [42]
On May 25, 2020, a 9-1-1 call from an employee at Cup Foods led to the fatal encounter between George Floyd and the Minneapolis police. The employee reported that Floyd had paid using a suspected counterfeit $20 bill. Derek Chauvin and three other police officers arrived in response, and they arrested and detained Floyd. During the arrest, Chauvin pinned Floyd by his neck on the ground for 9 minutes and 29 seconds as he struggled to breathe and died. [43] [44] Several bystanders attempted to intervene unsuccessfully, but several captured video footage on their cellphones. [45] [46] Cup Foods closed temporarily during the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis–Saint Paul and unrest in mid 2020, but re-opened in August 2020. [16] [42] The store changed its name to Unity Foods in 2023. [47]
Minnesota Agape Movement is a non-profit in Minneapolis with a headquarters office on the 3700 block of Chicago Avenue.[ citation needed ] The organization has contracts with the city to improve health and safety and build community in the area, often taking over functions that police might otherwise handle. The organization was formed shortly after the death of George Floyd by members including Steve Floyd (no relation to George Floyd), a longtime street outreach worker for the area. Members of Agape were involved with putting up the barricades around George Floyd Square in May of 2020 and Agape led the effort to reopen the square in June of 2021. [48]
George Floyd Global Memorial is a 501(c)3 organization in Minneapolis with a headquarters' office on the 3500 block of Chicago Avenue. The organization acts as a curator of the demonstrator-installed art exhibits at George Floyd Square. Its mission is to inventory, collect, and preserve the public art installations and the approximately 5,000 offerings that were left by visitors at the square. [19] [49] [50]
The Powderhorn Park neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States is located approximately three miles south of downtown and is bordered by East Lake Street to the north, Cedar Avenue to the east, East 38th Street to the south, and Chicago Avenue to the west.
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old black American man, was murdered in Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested after a store clerk alleged that he made a purchase using a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck for over nine minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and lying face-down in a street. Two other police officers, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane, assisted Chauvin in restraining Floyd. Lane had also pointed a gun at Floyd's head before Floyd was handcuffed. A fourth police officer, Tou Thao, prevented bystanders from intervening.
Derek Michael Chauvin is a former police officer who murdered George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. On May 25, 2020, Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck for over nine minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on the street, calling out "I can't breathe", during an arrest made with three other officers. Chauvin was dismissed by the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) on May 26 and arrested on May 29. The murder set off a series of protests in Minneapolis–Saint Paul and across the rest of the United States, later spreading around the world.
The George Floyd protests were a series of demonstrations against police brutality and riots that began in Minneapolis in the United States on May 26, 2020. The protests and civil unrest began in Minneapolis as reactions to the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old unarmed African American man, by city police during an arrest. They spread nationally and internationally. Veteran officer Derek Chauvin was recorded as kneeling on Floyd's neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds; Floyd complained of not being able to breathe, but three other officers looked on and prevented passers-by from intervening. Chauvin and the other three officers involved were later arrested. In April 2021, Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. In June 2021, Chauvin was sentenced to 22+1⁄2 years in prison.
Civil unrest over the murder of George Floyd began as local protests in Minneapolis–Saint Paul on May 26, 2020, the day after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer. Protests and civil disorder quickly spread to other locations in the U.S. state of Minnesota, the United States, and internationally. This list includes notable protests and events of civil disorder in Minnesota in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder.
George Perry Floyd Jr. was a black American man who was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest made after a store clerk suspected Floyd may have used a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill, on May 25, 2020. Derek Chauvin, one of four police officers who arrived on the scene, knelt on Floyd's neck and back for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, causing his death from a lack of oxygen. After his murder, protests against police brutality, especially towards black people, quickly spread across the United States and globally. His dying words, "I can't breathe", became a rallying slogan.
The George Floyd riots in Chicago were a series of civil disturbances in 2020 in the city of Chicago, Illinois. Unrest in the city began as a response to the murder of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020. The demonstrations and riots, supporting justice for Floyd and protesting police brutality, occurred simultaneously with those of over 100 other cities in the United States. Chicago is among 12 major cities that declared curfews in order to prevent looting and vandalism. On May 31, Mayor Lori Lightfoot asked Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker to send the Illinois National Guard to Chicago for the first time in the 52 years since the 1968 riots in Chicago. The economic damage caused by the disturbances exceeded $66 million.
8 minutes 46 seconds (8:46) is a symbol of police brutality that originated from the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Derek Chauvin, a police officer, knelt on Floyd's neck, asphyxiating him. The duration that Chauvin spent kneeling was reported for weeks as 8 minutes 46 seconds, and later as 7 minutes 46 seconds, until body camera footage released in August 2020 showed that the actual time was 9 minutes 29 seconds. In the days following his murder, and the protests that followed, the duration became a focus of commemorations and debates, especially around Blackout Tuesday.
Local protests over the murder of George Floyd, sometimes called the Minneapolis riots or Minneapolis uprising, began on May 26, 2020, and within a few days had inspired a global protest movement against police brutality and racial inequality. The initial events were a reaction to a video filmed the day before and circulated widely in the media of police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds while Floyd struggled to breathe, begged for help, lost consciousness, and died. Public outrage over the content of the video gave way to widespread civil disorder in Minneapolis, Saint Paul, and other cities in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area over the five-day period of May 26 to 30 after Floyd's murder.
A wave of civil unrest in the United States, initially triggered by the murder of George Floyd during his arrest by Minneapolis police officers on May 25, 2020, led to protests and riots against systemic racism in the United States, such as in the form of police violence and other forms of violence. Since then, numerous other incidents of police brutality have drawn continued attention and unrest in various parts of the country.
As a reaction to the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, racial justice activists and some residents of the Powderhorn community in Minneapolis staged an occupation protest at the intersection of East 38th Street and Chicago Avenue with a blockade of the streetway lasting over a year. The intersection is where Derek Chauvin, a white police officer with the Minneapolis Police Department, murdered George Floyd, an unarmed 46-year-old Black man. Activists erected barricades to block vehicular traffic and transformed the intersection and surrounding structures with amenities, social services, and public art depicting Floyd and other racial justice themes. The community called the unofficial memorial and protest zone at the intersection "George Floyd Square". The controversial street occupation in 2020 and 2021 was described as an "autonomous zone" and a "no-go" place for police, but local officials disputed the extent of such characterizations.
38th Street is a major east-west roadway in the U.S. city of Minneapolis and an officially designated cultural district in the Powderhorn community. The area developed into a residential zone when the Chicago Avenue street car line was extended to East 38th Street in 1880. Since the 1930s, the area has featured many Black-owned businesses, and the surrounding neighborhoods have had distinct histories from other neighborhoods in Minneapolis due to racial settlement patterns that concentrated Black residents there.
The aftermath of the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis–Saint Paul describes the result of civil disorder between May 26 and June 7, 2020, in the Twin Cities metropolitan area of the U.S. state of Minnesota. Protests began as a response to the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man on May 25, after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds as three other officers assisted during an arrest. The incident was captured on a bystander's video and it drew public outrage as video quickly circulated in the news media by the following day.
The U.S. city of Minneapolis featured officially and unofficially designated camp sites in city parks for people experiencing homelessness that operated from June 10, 2020, to January 7, 2021. The emergence of encampments on public property in Minneapolis was the result of pervasive homelessness, mitigations measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic in Minnesota, local unrest after the murder of George Floyd, and local policies that permitted encampments. At its peak in the summer of 2020, there were thousands of people camping at dozens of park sites across the city. Many of the encampment residents came from outside of Minneapolis to live in the parks. By the end of the permit experiment, four people had died in the city's park encampments, including the city's first homicide victim of 2021, who was stabbed to death inside a tent at Minnehaha Park on January 3, 2021.
Darnella Frazier is an American woman who recorded the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, posting her video on Facebook and Instagram. The video undermined the initial account of Floyd's death by the Minneapolis Police Department, and served as evidence leading to criminal charges against four police officers. Frazier testified during the trial, which ended with the conviction of Derek Chauvin on murder charges, and the convictions of the other three officers on manslaughter. She received a special award and citation from the Pulitzer Prize board in 2021.
Civil unrest began in the Uptown district of the U.S. city of Minneapolis on June 3, 2021, as a reaction to news reports that law enforcement officers had killed a wanted suspect during an arrest. The law enforcement killing occurred atop a parking ramp near West Lake Street and Girard Avenue. Police fired several rounds, killing the person at the scene. In an initial statement about the encounter, the U.S. Marshals Service alleged that a person failed to comply with arresting officers and produced a gun. Crowds gathered on West Lake Street near the parking ramp soon afterwards as few details were known about the incident or the deceased person, who was later identified as Winston Boogie Smith, a 32-year-old black American man.
In 2020 and 2021, several protests were held in the U.S. city of Minneapolis that coincided with judicial proceedings and the criminal trial of Derek Chauvin. As an officer with the Minneapolis Police Department, Chauvin was charged with the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed African American man who died during an arrest incident on May 25, 2020. A bystander's video captured Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck for over nine minutes while Floyd struggled to breathe, lost consciousness, and died. Protesters opposed Chauvin's pre-trial release from jail on bail in October 2020. In the lead up to and during the criminal trial in early 2021, demonstrators sought conviction and maximum sentencing for Chauvin, and the enactment of police reform measures.
George Floyd was an African American man who was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer on May 25, 2020. He was memorialized via events, protests, artwork installations, organizations, official designations, and campaigns.
In the early 2020s, the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area in U.S. state of Minnesota experienced a wave of civil unrest, comprising peaceful demonstrations and riots, against systemic racism toward black Americans, notably in the form of police violence. A number of events occurred, beginning soon after the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer on May 25, 2020. National Public Radio characterized the events as cultural reckoning on topics of racial injustice.