Joy, relief and a call to action
Jubilation is mixed with continued frustration with policing polices, as Biden, others push reform
Across America, communities had prepared for the worst. They had put up barriers and called in reinforcements. They had boarded up windows and declared emergencies. They were bracing for Derek Chauvin to be acquitted of George Floyd’s murder, for the inevitable protests that would follow, for the strife and conflict and destruction of last year to be replayed this spring.
That’s certainly what B.J. Wilder was ready for. The Minneapolis resident had been disappointed too many times, seen justice deferred or denied all too often, particularly for Black Americans. His city, he said, felt like “a powder keg.”
But when the decision came, he and the others who had gathered outside the Cup Foods store, where Floyd was killed, got something unexpected. As the guilty verdicts on all three counts of murder and manslaughter were announced to the crowd, there were tears of joy, hugs and cheers. Instead of anger and betrayal, Wilder experienced relief, and even some hope.
“It feels like a new day in America,” said Wilder.
But the optimism was also tempered by realism.
President Joe Biden said the conviction “can be a giant step forward” for the nation in the fight against systemic racism. But he declared that “it’s not enough.”
Biden spoke from the White House hours after the verdict, alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, with the pair saying the country’s work is far from finished. “We can’t stop here,” Biden declared.
Biden and Harris called on Congress to act swiftly to address policing reform, including by approving a bill named for Floyd, who died with his neck under Chauvin’s knee last May. Beyond that, the president said, the entire country must confront hatred to “change hearts and minds as well as laws and policies.”
Said Phillip Atiba Goff, CEO and co-founder of the Center for Policing Equity: “Holding one murderer accountable does not deliver justice for George Floyd and other victims of state-sponsored violence. Only holding ourselves accountable for creating and maintaining the system that enabled Chauvin can bring us any closer.”
Goff, who testified before Congress last June alongside Floyd’s brother Philonise, said a “long slog toward justice” remained in order to overcome “generations of discrimination and disinvestment.”
Still, nationwide, expected protests over the latest injustice gave way to celebrations that the jury in Minneapolis “did the right thing.”
That was how Barack and Michelle Obama put it and, for once in a hyper-polarized nation, there was relatively little disagreement. At least in public.
Civil rights activists praised the decision and so did police chiefs. Politicians on either side of the aisle found rare common ground. Mayors dared to exhale, as did Minnesotans.
“Oh my lord,” said Shawn Mayes, a fourth-generation Black Minnesotan in a trembling voice as she celebrated in Minneapolis. “I feel like I can breathe.”
In predominantly Black West Philadelphia, a woman driving by lowered her window, raised a fist and shouted “Guilty!” moments after the verdict was read. Residents sitting on their porches — eyes trained to smartphones or listening intently to radio news — cheered. Cars honked, people whooped, neighbors hugged
The National Civil Rights Museum — housed in the onetime Memphis, Tennessee, motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot dead — issued a statement reminding people that the Chauvin verdict, while welcome, was an anomaly.
“Justice was served in this case,” the statement said. “But the justice we need is bigger than the verdict of this one case. Hopefully, this case will set a precedent for the verdicts to come for the many other victims of unjust police killings.”