Floyd filmer awarded Pulitzer citation
The Pulitzer Prize board awarded a special citation yesterday to Darnella Frazier, the teenager whose cellphone footage of George Floyd’s murder in May last year led to massive protests and sparked a racial reckoning in the country.
Frazier was 17 at the time she filmed Floyd’s death under the knee of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, and she testified at Chauvin’s trial where he would eventually be convicted. Her video contradicted the initial police account of Floyd’s death.
The board said Frazier received the citation for ‘‘courageously reporting the murder of George Floyd, a video that spurred protests against police brutality around the world, highlighting the crucial role of citizens in journalists’ quest for truth and justice’’.
In advance of the announcement, some media observers had been calling for the Pulitzer Board to give Frazier an award, including four-time former Pulitzer juror Roy Peter Clark, who acknowledged ‘‘the material and the creator fall outside the traditional boundaries’’ of the prizes but that her video has a ‘‘social and ethical purpose, one that aligns with journalistic values’’.
Frazier never intended to produce ‘‘one of the most important civil rights documents in a generation,’’ as Nieman Foundation curator Ann Marie Lipinski described it.
She had just been walking her younger cousin to the store on May 25, 2020, when she saw a struggle between a black man and a white police officer. She then hit record on her phone – and didn’t stop for about 10 minutes.
Frazier stayed on the pavement near Cup Foods convenience store to film the video that captured Floyd under Chauvin’s knee, showing Floyd’s dying moments as he pleaded for his mother. Frazier later testified at Chauvin’s trial. Her video dramatically contradicted the initial police account, which asserted that officers ‘‘noted he appeared to be suffering medical distress’’ after they handcuffed him and that he was taken to a hospital via ambulance where he died.
Legal analyst Sunny Hostin has called her video ‘‘the strongest piece of evidence I have ever seen in a case against a police officer’’. The video sparked outrage around the world.
Despite all of the unexpected attention, Frazier has declined interview requests, issuing rare public remarks when she accepted a PEN America award last year and posting a lengthy statement to Facebook on the anniversary of Floyd’s death.
‘‘A lot of people call me a hero even though I don’t see myself as one. I was just in the right place at the right time,’’ she wrote. ‘‘Behind this smile, behind these awards, behind the publicity, I’m a girl trying to heal from something I am reminded of every day. Everyone talks about the girl who recorded George Floyd’s death, but to actually be her is a different story.’’ But ‘‘even though this was a traumatic life-changing experience for me, I’m proud of myself,’’ she wrote. ‘‘If it weren’t for my video, the world wouldn’t have known the truth. I own that.’’