‘It did hit people differently than many of the murders we’ve seen.’ Melina Abdullah on death of George Floyd

Protests over police violence and officer-involved killings of Black people continued over the holiday weekend. The national Black Lives Matter movement hosted another demonstration too. The BLM movement began in 2013 as an effort to hold officers accountable in the deaths of unarmed people. It has picked up renewed vigor following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. But how effective has that movement been in eliciting long lasting change?

“I think that the murder of George Floyd is one tremendous straw that absolutely broke the camel’s back,” says Black Lives Matter LA co-founder Melina Abdullah. “And we know the names Breonna Taylor and Sean Reed and Ahmaud Arbery. … And of course that straw of George Floyd helps all of those other names come to the surface, and for us to recall what it means that these other lives were stolen as well.”