May 25

May 25 George Floyd

Demonstrations, Donald J. Trump, Performance, Protest, Public Declarations

On June 5, 2020, following protests over the killing of George Floyd, the D.C. Department of Public works created a mural honoring Floyd. During just one night, workers painted the words “Black Lives Matter” in 35-foot-tall yellow lettering on 16th Street NW, just two blocks north of the White House. The scale of the letters and their proximity to the White House—then occupied by Donald J. Trump—proved to be a powerful political statement.

As a visual work, the mural was a bust. The only way to take in its grandeur was from an elevated vantage point. Without access to a nearby office building or a stay in the St. Regis Hotel, no one could fully appreciate the mural’s bold statement. I tried to photograph it several times, but that proved impossible, unless I was willing to photograph one or two letters at a time, and then create a panorama using Photoshop. Even then, the ground-level perspective would not yield the hoped-for, awe-inspiring effect.

On March 3 of this year, two and half months before the fifth anniversary of Floyd’s murder, Representative Clyde Andrew (R-GA-9) introduced legislation that would have withheld certain apportionment funds from the District of Columbia unless the mayor of the District of Columbia (i) removed the phrase “Black Lives Matter” from the street symbolically designated as Black Lives Matter Plaza; (ii) redesignated the street as Liberty Plaza; and (iii) removed the phrase from websites, documents, and other material under the jurisdiction of the District of Columbia.

The legislation never received serious consideration because Donald Trump and other Republicans exerted pressured on D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, causing her to “voluntarily” order the mural’s removal. Symbolically, the removal of the mural represents a physical manifestation of the Trump Administration’s civil rights policies. As everyone knows, Trump has not only purged DEI programs from the Federal government, but demanded that corporate America and universities do the same. He has been quick in handing out highly questionable pardons to those convicted of serious Federal criminal offenses. Many have been for white-collar crimes. But as one person pointed out, ‘I am hard-pressed to identify a Black person who has received a Trump pardon.’ [Postscript: On Wednesday, May 28, 2025, Trump commuted the sentences of several Black people, including notorious gang leader Larry Hoover.]

Following the murder of George Floyd and the protests that his murder sparked, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights division opened investigations into several police departments around the country, as well as proposing consent decrees with the Louisville and Minneapolis police departments designed to curb unconstitutional policing practices. In an apparent “nod’ to the fifth anniversary of George Floyd’s murder, the Department of Justice dismissed the Biden-era police investigations and proposed consent decrees on May 21, just three days before the Floyd anniversary.

By now, everyone has seen clips of Trump ambushing South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office. To appeal to his base, Trump mischaracterized scenes in a video, claiming that thousands of white South African farmers had been murdered and that others had their land confiscated. While Trump has largely ended asylum for people fleeing many countries, he has granted asylum to white Afrikaners in an Executive Order filled with mistruths.

Given all that has transpired during the first four months of Trump’s second term, I assumed Chicago’s Federal Plaza be jammed pack today as a several groups marked the fifth anniversary of George Floyd’s murder. My assumption was incorrect. Given the stakes, the turnout for the demonstration was paltry. Arguably George Floyd’s murder no longer sparks the outrage that it did in 2000.

According to the Chicago Tribune, the demonstration turned out “more than 100 people.” The number may be “more than,” but that phrasing means it fell short to 200 or even 150 people. Otherwise, the article would have used the higher number. I would argue that the number was less that 100 if the people with cameras were excluded from the headcount.

People claim to be enraged by Trump, particularly his civil rights record. Trump’s attitude toward Blacks has not changed since the days of the Central Park Five. At the time, Trump took out a full-page ad in Newsday demanding that the death penalty be reinstated. The ad was artfully worded to not directly name the five teenagers, but everyone could read between the lines. The teenagers were wrongly convicted and sentenced for the crime that Matias Reyes later confessed to committing, resulting in the teenagers’ sentences being vacated.

Yet only 100 people showed up on a sunny Sunday afternoon to show their outrage at Trump’s racial agenda. The demonstration focused on policing practices, but the Trump’s agenda was the elephant in the plaza. As for policing practices, the speakers and demonstrators focused on some of the better-known instances involving police misconduct resulting in the deaths of Blacks and Latinos. Their points were legitimate, but the speakers maligned the Chicago Police Department by applying an inappropriately broad brush. As with every profession, CPD has some bad or rogue police officers. But as I have written before, the vast majority of Chicago police officers put their lives on the line every day to serve and protect. None of them deserve to be castigated for doing a difficult job, and trying to do it evenhandedly.

As for the rally and march. No new ground was covered. The speakers were generally well spoken, many making legitimate points. Because I was unclear whether there would be a march, early on, I asked one of the green-vested marshals whether there would be one. He said it depended on the turnout. Apparently, the numbers met the threshold, because the demonstrators marched up State Street to Trump Tower. In my view, they would have been better off not marching today. The numbers were so small that the marchers were symbolically dwarfed by the Trump Tower, visually suggesting that they were impotent when standing before Trump.

[Click on an Image to Enlarge It. The Images Are Not Necessarily in Exact Chronological Order]