‘Our Selma moment’
Racial justice activists hope Chauvin verdict spurs systemic change
As celebrations erupted Tuesday after Derek Chauvin was found guilty of the murder of George Floyd, those fighting for racial justice said the verdict represents a likely boon for the movement, an impetus for systemic change on par with major events of the 1960s.
“This is our Selma moment,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said, citing the event in which Alabama marchers headed to the state Capitol in Montgomery were attacked by state troopers with nightsticks and tear gas, an incident that sparked passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Floyd’s death last year, along with the killing of Breonna Taylor, led to a national reckoning on race. A jury found the former Minneapolis police officer, 45, guilty of second-degree and thirddegree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
The moment, Johnson said, has the potential to galvanize support for the George Floyd Police Reform Act, a 2020 measure targeting misconduct, excessive force and racial bias in policing.
“This should be a catalyst,” Johnson said. “It is an opportunity for Congress to do what’s necessary to make sure our communities can have trust in police agencies and feel safe.”
President Joe Biden said the decision could be “a moment of significant
change, calling for passage of the bill.
For some, the verdicts felt empowering and vindicating – a reassurance that the activism they devoted themselves to had been worthwhile, even as they had had their occasional doubts.
“Sometimes it felt like we were even smaller than a David facing Goliath,” said Melina Abdullah, co-director of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles. “There were times when we’d demonstrate, and there’d be, like, five of us, and we felt like it might be insurmountable. But what the last year has taught me is that there are moments of awakening where the entire world wakes up.”
As she watched the verdict at home with her kids, Abdullah said, her emotions took her by surprise: not just relief and elation, but a sense of faith in the people who helped make it possible.
“It’s an affirmation of the work that’s been put in over the last year,” she said. “Since the moment George Floyd’s life was stolen, people have taken to the streets and issued demands, and what we have seen in this moment is that that bears fruit, that organizing works. We can not only reform but transform the system.”
As the news broke in New York City’s Union Square, Chivona Newsome, cofounder of Black Lives Matter Greater New York, had a similar reaction.
“It used to feel hopeless,” she said. “But the George Floyd movement solidified everything I believe: that the power truly belongs to the people. To every single activist, anyone who went to a rally or blacked out their social media: Know that you are powerful.”
Cries of “Guilty! Guilty!” around her.
“Today, a Black life truly mattered,” Newsome said. “It showed the police that they can’t go on killing, that they can no longer hide behind a badge.”
In Rhode Island, Ray Rickman was frightened the jury would serve up a half-serving of justice and fail to convict Chauvin of the most serious charge of second-degree murder.
“And when the judge read it – guilty – I got tears in my eyes,” said Rickman, executive director of Stages of Freedom, an organization supporting Black youth through cultural activities in Providence. “This is an individual going to jail, but the truth is that this is a blessing for the nation. We’ve seen this a hundred times – police don’t get indicted, much less go to trial.”
“The real victory here is not the incarceration of Derek Chauvin,” said Donna Murch, an associate professor of history swelled at Rutgers University. “Putting another person in a cage is not how we change the world. But stopping the killings of Black people with complete impunity, saying that Black lives matter – this sends that signal.”
For Cephus “Uncle Bobby” Johnson, whose 22-year-old nephew, Oscar Grant, was killed in 2009 by a Bay Area Rapid Transit officer who said he mistook his gun for his Taser, the moment was a release. “Oh man, I was full of emotions,” said Johnson, who helped found the Love Not Blood Campaign, an agency that advocates for police changes in Oakland, California, after Grant’s death. “I’m extremely glad that it came down the way it came down, and I’m hopeful that some changes are finally beginning to take place.”
Activists and leaders cautioned that the path toward racial justice remains long. “This gives us some hope for the movement,” said Utah state Rep. Sandra Hollins, a Democrat. “But we still have a lot of fighting to do. There’s still a number of people out there who are hashtags, who need justice.”
Hollins, Utah’s first Black female representative, sponsored a state bill in 2018 to remove references to slavery from the constitution, an effort that intensified as protests raged last summer and passed overwhelmingly as a ballot measure in November.
The events of the past year, though difficult, she said, have filled her with hope as she’s seen youths embrace activism and political action.
“Young people are contacting me, wanting to talk policy change,” Hollins said. “This movement has grown and turned into more than just a moment. We have seen people across all cultural and racial lines come together and say, ‘Enough. What has been happening can no longer happen.’ ”
In Chattanooga, Tennessee, activist Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, a member and leader of the Movement for Black Lives, said that although she was glad the justice system finally functioned as it was meant to, she felt an overwhelming sense of grief.
“What justice should have looked like was George Floyd not being murdered in the first place,” she said. “It’s not just putting away one bad apple when we know the system is rotten to the core.”
That means much work still lies ahead, Henderson said. “We have a racist and unjust system,” she said. “Police continue to harm our communities, using tear gas on peaceful protesters, and without systemic change, we’re bound to repeat the cycle again.”
Rashad Robinson, president of New York racial justice organization Color of Change, said activists and leaders need to hold accountable the corporations that in the fervor of last summer pledged to change how they operate and to make sure lawmakers go beyond speechmaking to pass meaningful legislation.
“The work ahead is about the structural changes necessary to deal with a racist and corrupt system of policing that had us all worried that what we saw with our own eyes would still not lead to accountability,” Robinson said.
Domingo Garcia, national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said he hopes the victory inspires Congress and state legislatures to enact uniform police training and procedures and to eliminate institutional racism.
“George Floyd’s screams were really screams for police reform, so I hope this sends a strong message that it’s time,” Garcia said. “Hopefully every police officer in America knows that you’re just one video away from ending up like this.”
John Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice-AAJC, said racial justice proponents need to continue not only to recognize white supremacist elements of society but to call them out.
“We have to work hard to dismantle that,” Yang said. “And it’s important to name that in the struggle for racial justice. Sometimes we’re too fearful of using certain terms, and in this moment, we have to be more bold.”
Murch, the Rutgers professor, said the verdict is important for her and her generation, born in the late 1960s at the tail end of the civil rights movement, as one of very few civil rights victories that they’ve experienced.
Because nothing builds momentum like victories, she said, she hopes this is just the start.
“It’s not just, ‘Oh, Chauvin is going to jail, everybody can go home now,’ ” she said. “This is going to empower people to fight for more structural change, stopping the mass criminalization of Black and brown men. It will inspire people to take on more intractable problems.”
That’s why, she said, she found herself so moved by the verdict and filled with pride for the country.
“It showed the power of organizing and mass mobilization,” Murch said. “Those 16 to 25 million people who went out into the streets, I firmly believe that’s why we have this verdict. The work done by prison abolitionists, by Black Lives Matter, the Dream Defenders, all these many organizations, this is what made those protests possible. That’s what made the change.”
“What the last year has taught me is that there are moments of awakening where the entire world wakes up.” Melina Abdullah Black Lives Matter Los Angeles