What Is the Future of George Floyd Square?
Dear Headway reader,
A version of this letter was originally published in Race/Related, a weekly newsletter focused on race, identity and culture.
There's no place in America quite like George Floyd Square. More than 300 responses to our story about the site have reinforced this sentiment.
Even if you landed in this place without any context, you would know something significant happened at the intersection of 38th Avenue East and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis. From the sculptures of raised fists marking the intersections that border the street to the closed gas station bearing the hand-painted title 'The People's Way,' the corner where a police officer killed George Floyd by kneeling on his neck on May 25, 2020 now feels like the physical outpouring of a community's grief, anger and hope.
It is currently a place suspended in time. Since its days as a barricaded protest zone filled with residents and activists, members of this community remain divided over what to do with the impromptu memorial that was created here.
If there's consensus on any point, it's that change is both inevitable and necessary. But there are conflicting visions over what the city should do with the site, which has been the object of a still-unresolved struggle between Mayor Jacob Frey and the Minneapolis City Council.
The Headway team asked Ernesto Londoño, The Times's Minneapolis bureau chief, and Joshua Rashaad McFadden, who photographed the George Floyd protests for The Times in 2020, to show us the square as it currently stands, alongside the perspectives of some of the people with a say in what it becomes. We wanted to document the site as it exists today, knowing that it will eventually change. You can see our story here.
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