George Floyd murder: The uprising, five years on

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes a mix of guest commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

•••

In the spring of 2020, the world turned to Minneapolis as George Floyd was murdered on the corner of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue S.

People gathered at that intersection with candles, flowers, cardboard signs and prayers. They cried, marched and stood vigil in the face of overwhelming grief and rage. The city became both a ground zero and a guiding light — a place where mourning transformed into movement, where neighbors became organizers and where impossible questions demanded bold answers.

This week, the documentary film “The People’s Way” premieres in Minneapolis at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival. The film follows our work — as three Black women organizers, leaders and caretakers of this movement — and is one of many reflections emerging as we reach the five-year mark since George Floyd’s murder. We offer the words in this commentary alongside the film, to ground the story in the ongoing struggle we remain committed to.

Five years later, we are no longer in a moment. We are deep in a movement — and we are being tested.

Movements are not made only of marches. They are made of memory, labor and leaders who step forward not because they are asked, but because something inside them won’t let them look away.

In this city, Black women have carried so much of the weight of this movement. We know, because we have lived it.

Some of us began by caring for the memorials — not just as sites of grief but as sacred ground.

We rose early, stayed late, organizing offerings into archives, transforming protest into a form of preservation. A reminder that memory is not passive — it is active, intentional and political.

Some of us have walked alongside grieving families for years — before George Floyd’s name was known worldwide. We’ve sat on living room floors with mothers and siblings, we’ve organized vigils and demanded accountability from a system that continues to fail us. We’ve built networks of care where institutions have abandoned us. We’ve lifted names that others tried to erase.

Some of us stewarded the grief and clarity of 2020 into public office — not to replicate power, but to challenge it from within. We’ve pushed legislation, amplified grassroots solutions and navigated institutions that often see our values as a threat. We’ve learned how lonely that work can be. And still, we stay grounded in the people who put us there.

And all of us — whether inside institutions or outside of them — have done this work under a kind of scrutiny that rarely leaves room for nuance or compassion. We have been told we are too loud, too divisive, too visible. At the same time we have been expected to be the first to show up, the last to leave, and the ones who never fall apart. We do this work out of love. But love does not shield us from exhaustion. And leadership — especially for Black women — is not a spotlight; it’s often a searchlight. One that exposes rather than protects. One that asks us to stand open and vulnerable in the face of criticism, even from those we consider our own.

Still, we lead. Still, we show up. Because we know what’s at stake.

And we don’t do it alone.

We write now, five years later, to name a truth: The movement lives on, and it has grown more complex. It has encountered fractures. It has grown fatigued. And it has continued — because we have continued, in community, together.

We also know there are tensions within our own communities. Some voices have felt unseen, some work unacknowledged. Black men in particular have asked why their contributions, their pain and their leadership aren’t always centered in the story that followed George Floyd’s death.

These questions deserve care, not defensiveness. If we are building a movement for liberation, we cannot afford to fall into false choices — especially the idea that uplifting Black women means diminishing Black men. Zero-sum thinking is a tool of the systems we’re trying to dismantle. Our liberation is bound together. The hard work of listening, healing and returning to one another — this too, is the movement.

Affirming Black women’s leadership is not a threat to Black men, or to anyone who has put their heart and labor into this movement. Honoring the work of some does not require denying the work of others. Our community is strongest when we recognize the full spectrum of contributions. We must keep building in ways that make space for us all to be seen, respected and connected.

The movement for Black liberation in Minneapolis is not over. It is still alive — bruised in places, but breathing. We offer these reflections as a recommitment. To remind this city — and one another — that liberation is a process, not a flashpoint.

Five years later, we are still here. Still marching. Still mourning. Still organizing. Still loving. Still learning how to hold each other close.

This is what it means to stay. This is what it means to build. This is what it means to heal.

Robin Wonsley is a member of the Minneapolis City Council, representing Ward 2. Jeanelle Austin is executive director of the George Floyd Global Memorial. Toshira Garraway Allen is the founder of Families Supporting Families. They are featured in the documentary “The People’s Way,” which follows their journeys after George Floyd’s murder and will have its Midwest premiere at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival on April 9 and 10 (see tinyurl.com/the-peoples-way).