On George Floyd’s Birthday, America Still Owes Him Justice

George Floyd should be celebrating his birthday today.

He should be surrounded by his family, laughing with his daughter, maybe flipping ribs on a grill, maybe watching a game — not lying in a grave while the country that watched him die tries to pretend it has moved on.

On May 25, 2020, George Floyd — a 46-year-old Black man, a father, a friend, a truck driver, a rapper, a human being — was pinned face down on a Minneapolis street while Officer Derek Chauvin crushed his neck beneath a knee for nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds.

George gasped that he couldn’t breathe.

He called for his mother.

He begged for his life.

The world watched as the life drained from his body. And that moment — that horrific, senseless act of brutality — ripped the blinders off millions of people who could no longer look away from the truth: policing in America kills, and it kills Black men at a rate that should shake any conscience capable of love.

The Day the World Cried Out

After his murder, something inside this country cracked open. Millions poured into the streets. They chanted his name in cities, towns, and villages across the world.

Black Lives Matter murals covered roads from D.C. to Denver.

Children learned his name before they learned the presidents.

There was a promise then — that his death would not be in vain. That America would finally change.

Congress introduced the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. Cities moved to ban chokeholds and overhaul police accountability. There were speeches, vigils, reforms, and reckonings.

But as the years passed, so did the urgency. Political backlash and right-wing fear campaigns turned “defund” into a slur. Leaders who once knelt in kente cloth returned to business as usual.

And the same system that murdered George Floyd still kills roughly 1,000 people a year, with Black Americans nearly three times more likely to die at the hands of police than white Americans.

The Backslide

Today, five years later, the country has backpedaled. The Trump administration recently ended federal oversight in Minneapolis and Louisville — the very cities that birthed a global call for reform — and deleted the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database, which was meant to prevent abusive officers from simply moving to a new department.

It’s as if they’re trying to erase not just progress, but memory itself.

Even the Supreme Court has rolled back avenues for holding police accountable. Across the South, GOP governors have outlawed DEI programs, restricted protest rights, and reinstated the same authoritarian language used to silence civil rights leaders in the 1960s.

What This Day Should Mean

George Floyd’s birthday should be a national day of reflection — not performative, not symbolic, but honest.

It should remind us that real change doesn’t come from hashtags or headlines. It comes from dismantling the structures that allowed that officer’s knee to stay on George’s neck while the world watched.

It comes from ending qualified immunity, restoring federal oversight, defunding brutality, and funding community safety and mental health response programs.

It comes from protecting protest and holding power accountable — no matter who sits in office.

And it comes from the courage to say, again and again:

Black Lives Still Matter.

The Breath We Still Owe

George Floyd’s life mattered. His death was horrific, unjustifiable, and unforgettable — not a chapter in a history book, but an open wound on this nation’s soul.

On his birthday, we owe him more than remembrance. We owe him results.

Justice is not a trend.

It’s not a moment that passes when the news cycle changes.

It’s the unfinished work of all who believe this country can still choose to be better.

We couldn’t give George Floyd breath that day.

The least we can do is make sure his fight for it was not in vain.