Some of those writings ended up in the closet of his girlfriend, Courteney Ross. Floyd met Ross during a time in his life when things were looking up. He had leſt his hometown of Houston, Texas, in 2017, seeking redemption from a life tormented by prison, unemployment and addiction, and found stabilit and sobriet in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was working, in love, and making progress toward his goal of becoming a truck driver. “Plan come together beautiful, we back,” he wrote. But the reprieve didn’t last long. Floyd came home one night in October 2017 to find his roommate—a Black man who had gone through the same drug treatment programme he had recently completed— lying dead inside their apartment. The man had relapsed and overdosed. A few months later, Floyd’s mother died in Houston, passing away before her firstborn son had a chance to say goodbye in person. Faced with debilitating grief, Floyd found himself drawn back to the twin demons of addiction and despair he had fled his hometown to escape. “I went through the ringer three times over aſter God called her in,” Floyd wrote in a text message to his aunt aſter the death of the woman he would cry out for in his final moments. In analysing the words Floyd wrote during different stages of his life, we were able to gain a beter sense of his aspirations, his limitations and his soul. The picture that emerged was that of a man who faced his troubles with hope and perseverance. And while Floyd made his fair share of mistakes, many of which we document in the
PICTURED BELOW: IMAGES FROM PROTESTS ACROSS THE GLOBE PROMPTED BY THE MURDER OF GEORGE FLOYD IN MAY 2020
book, he acknowledged them with humilit and a belief that he could make things right if given a shot. “Oh heavenly father we are tore down, please help to build us back up,” Floyd wrote in a diary entry in the mid- Noughties, when he was a litle over 30 years old. “Please forgive me... I’m sorry for turning my back on you.” In another entry from around the same period, he
lamented the struggles he faced due to pending court cases and other hardships. “Sometimes we have to go through things to get to where we are going. I shouldn’t worry knowing I put everything in God’s hand,” Floyd wrote. “But I’m only human.”
Resonating globally
Fading momentum risks a waning legacy [around] Floyd, a man who was so beloved that so many dedicated their lives to keeping his story alive
The approaching two-year anniversary of Floyd’s inhu- mane murder has sparked fresh questions over how much has really changed since the largest protest movement in history unfurled in large cities and small hamlets across the globe. From Peckham to Portland, from Hackney to Houston, activists and everyday citizens are questioning what has become of the myriad efforts to combat institu- tional racism since 25th May 2020. Picking up where the Washington Post series leſt off, our book devotes several chapters to analysing the aſtermath of Floyd’s death. Highlighting the experiences of several people who have fought to take up Floyd’s cause and speak on his behalf, we trace the triumphs and trials of the Black Lives Mater movement and the broader fight for racial justice. Our reporting follows Floyd’s girlfriend, a white woman trying to figure out the appropriate way to mourn; Philonise, a truck driver who found new purpose in seek- ing justice for his brother; and President Joe Biden, who ascended to high office on a promise to heal the nation’s racial wounds. In interviews with the three of them and several local
activists and officials in Minnesota, we saw how they grappled with the heavy responsibilit of using their voices to honour the legacy of a man who can no longer speak for himself. While they each acknowledge some measure of progress—the officer who killed Floyd was convicted of murder, and since then several high-profile killings of Black people have led to convictions in the US and the UK—there is a palpable fear that the world has moved on. The failure of the American Congress to pass a policing reform bill in Floyd’s name and the political backlash against discussions of systemic racism indicate a fading of momentum in the global movement. That fading momen- tum risks a waning legacy about the impact of Floyd, a man who was so beloved that so many dedicated their lives to keeping his story alive. “My brother is more than just a video,” Philonise Floyd
told Biden last year in a scene depicted in our book. “We want to make sure people know who he is.”
Award-winning journalists Toluse Olorunnipa and Robert Samuels are the co-authors of His Name is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice. The book was published in the UK in hardback yesterday by Bantam Press (19th May, 9781787635838) with an r.r.p. of £20.
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