His name is George Floyd : one man's life and the struggle for racial justice

"On May 25, 2020, George Floyd [died] at the hands of the police, murdered outside of a Minneapolis convenience store by white officer Derek Chauvin. The video recording of his death set off a series of protests in the United States and around the world, awakening millions to the ... need for reimagining this country's broken systems of policing. But behind a face that would be graffitied onto countless murals, and a name that has become synonymous with civil rights, there is the reality of one man's stolen life: a life beset by suffocating systemic pressures that ultimately proved inescapable. This biography of George Floyd shows the athletic young boy raised in the projects of Houston's Third Ward who would become a father, a partner, a friend, and a man constantly in search of a better life"--Publisher marketing.

Contents:

Flowers -- An ordinary day -- Home -- Roots -- Lessons -- Big Floyd -- The State of Texas vs. George Floyd -- The use of restraint -- You're on your own -- Turning point -- The real comes in -- Memorial Day -- We have nothing to lose but our chains -- Hear my cry -- Testimony -- American hope.

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Summary

WINNER OF THE 2023 PULITZER PRIZE IN NONFICTION
WINNER OF THE DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE
FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD AND LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE; FINALIST FOR THE J. ANTHONY LUKAS PRIZE; A BCALA 2023 HONOR NONFICTION AWARD WINNER.

A landmark biography by two prizewinning Washington Post reporters that reveals how systemic racism shaped George Floyd's life and legacy--from his family's roots in the tobacco fields of North Carolina, to ongoing inequality in housing, education, health care, criminal justice, and policing--telling the story of how one man's tragic experience brought about a global movement for change.

"It is a testament to the power of His Name Is George Floyd that the book's most vital moments come not after Floyd's death, but in its intimate, unvarnished and scrupulous account of his life . . . Impressive."
--New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)

"Since we know George Floyd's death with tragic clarity, we must know Floyd's America--and life--with tragic clarity. Essential for our times."
--Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist

"A much-needed portrait of the life, times, and martyrdom of George Floyd, a chronicle of the racial awakening sparked by his brutal and untimely death, and an essential work of history I hope everyone will read."
--Henry Louis Gates, Jr., author of The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song

The events of that day are now tragically familiar: on May 25, 2020, George Floyd became the latest Black person to die at the hands of the police, murdered outside of a Minneapolis convenience store by white officer Derek Chauvin. The video recording of his death set off the largest protest movement in the history of the United States, awakening millions to the pervasiveness of racial injustice. But long before his face was painted onto countless murals and his name became synonymous with civil rights, Floyd was a father, partner, athlete, and friend who constantly strove for a better life.

His Name Is George Floyd tells the story of a beloved figure from Houston's housing projects as he faced the stifling systemic pressures that come with being a Black man in America. Placing his narrative within the context of the country's enduring legacy of institutional racism, this deeply reported account examines Floyd's family roots in slavery and sharecropping, the segregation of his schools, the overpolicing of his community amid a wave of mass incarceration, and the callous disregard toward his struggle with addiction--putting today's inequality into uniquely human terms. Drawing upon hundreds of interviews with Floyd's closest friends and family, his elementary school teachers and varsity coaches, civil rights icons, and those in the highest seats of political power, Washington Post reporters Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa offer a poignant and moving exploration of George Floyd's America, revealing how a man who simply wanted to breathe ended up touching the world.

Author Notes

Robert Samuels is a staff writer at The New Yorker who focuses on stories about politics, policy, and the changing American identity. He co-authored His Name Is George Floyd while he was a national enterprise reporter for The Washington Post , where he worked for nearly twelve years. His first full-time journalism job was at The Miami Herald .

Toluse Olorunnipa is the White House Bureau Chief for The Washington Post . He joined the Post in 2019 and has covered three presidencies. He previously worked at Bloomberg , where he reported on politics and policy from Washington and Florida.

Reviews (5)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Washington Post reporters Samuels and Olorunnipa deliver an impeccably researched biography of George Floyd, whose 2020 murder by Minneapolis police sparked nationwide protests. After recounting the events leading up to Floyd's death, the authors rewind to his early years in Houston's segregated Third Ward in the 1970s and '80s. Recruited to play football at Texas A&M--Kingsville, Floyd became the first in his family to attend a four-year college, but struggled to meet the academic requirements and eventually dropped out. Back in the Third Ward, he got sucked into the drug trade and spent more than a decade in and out of prison before moving to Minneapolis for a fresh start. Interwoven with the biographical details are incisive sketches of the political and historical events that have shaped life for Floyd's family and other Black Americans. Recounting how Floyd's great-great-grandfather was forced to sell his landholdings in early 1900s North Carolina, the authors note that "between 1910 and 1997, Black farmers lost control of more than 90 percent of their farmlands." Elsewhere, Samuels and Olorunnipa discuss the war on drugs, school segregation, redlining, and more. This multifaceted and exceptionally informative account is both a moving testament to Floyd and a devastating indictment of America's racial inequities. Agent: Karen Brailsford, Aevitas Creative Management. (May)

Booklist Review

We saw him die. We say his name. Yet how well do we know George Floyd, whose death in Minneapolis police custody inspired a cataclysmic racial reckoning? This gripping oral history offers a behind-the-scenes look at the man, his loved ones and community, and the aftermath of his horrific death. Perry, as he was known to his family, was a complicated man, a dreamer with demons and unfulfilled ambitions who was deeply loved. Samuels and Olorunnipa enlarge on the poster image by introducing us to people whose lives were changed by encountering Floyd: family members, friends, teachers, lovers, co-workers, and the traumatized witnesses to his murder. Watching global protests for racial justice, Floyd's younger brother, Philonise, begins to question a lifetime of passive acceptance. Floyd's white girlfriend, Courteney, has a racial epiphany when Floyd and her student Daunte Wright are killed by police within a year. There are the officials who tried to minimize or exploit Floyd's killing, the cynical phone call from President Trump, the defense strategy highlighting Floyd's drug use and "deploying the racist trope of Black men being too wild to contain." Derek Chauvin was convicted, but support for Black Lives Matter has waned, and Philonise wonders if the soul-searching made any difference. A wrenching chronicle of one of the most devastating events of our time.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Ongoing attention to police violence and racial injustice and the media attention sure to surround this vital and illuminating work make it a must-have.

Guardian Review

When George Floyd was in high school, his teacher Bertha Dinkins prophetically told the teen: "I want to read about you in the newspaper¿ that you have made history and done something to change society". She could never have foretold that Floyd would become a household name because the world watched a video of police officer Derek Chauvin slowly choke him to death with his knee on his neck in 2020. The killing sparked the largest protests ever against racial injustice, prompting society to discuss racism in ways it has not done for more than a generation. His Name Is George Floyd (written by two Washington Post reporters) attempts to use the life and death of Floyd as a vehicle to examine the bigotry that lies at the heart of the present-day US. Figures that spark protests are often barely drawn in two dimensions: we have a name, an image and little else. We know Emmett Till - whose lynching in 1955 is credited with sparking the civil rights movement after his mother displayed his disfigured body in an open casket - as a 14-year-old killed for supposedly whistling at a white woman. Trayvon Martin - whose killing by George Zimmerman in 2012 ignited the Black Lives Matter movement - is the teenager in a hoodie who died for going to a shop to buy Skittles. In this age of misinformation, where the victims of police killings are made out to be the problem, this humanising of Floyd is necessary. The book does not paint him as a saint but explains his flaws in the context of his experiences. Yes, he was an addict, a convict, and even made a porn movie. But these are not separate from his role as a father, friend and the backbone of his family and community. It is welcome that Floyd is no longer an anonymous Black man and you can feel the devastation of his family, friends and community in the interviews that pepper the book. Samuels and Olorunnipa's greatest triumph is placing Floyd's life in the context of white supremacy. Before we get to Floyd, we learn about his ancestors' struggles as tenant farmers in the period after slavery was abolished, known as "reconstruction". Rather than abolition marking an end to racism, we grasp how the logic of racism continued. Racist laws and segregation became the tools for keeping the Black population oppressed. Floyd's great-grandfather was stripped of the land and money he had managed to accumulate in tobacco farming, leaving the family in the poverty that was passed down through the generations. The authors reflect on the irony of Floyd being killed after allegedly buying cigarettes with a fake $20 bill, given his family's history with tobacco. Throughout, Floyd's life is used to discuss issues such as racial terrorism, housing segregation, mass incarceration and racism in schooling. The point is driven home that his life and death were a result of the racism built into American society. David Smith was killed by Minneapolis police in 2010, in an almost identical manner to Floyd, but there was no public outcry. There is a way in which all the attention on Floyd's death has in some way limited the conversation: we all agree that his murder was indefensible, Derek Chauvin went to prison, minimal policing reforms occurred¿ and now we can move on. His Name Is George Floyd adds to this narrative by focusing on this one event and its aftermath. The lack of any global context severely limits our understanding of racism, which, as Malcolm X explained, is "not just an American problem, but a world problem". The focus on Floyd also follows the unfortunate pattern of highlighting the plight of Black men, reinforcing how we are drawn to the spectacle. The violence has tended to be public, from lashings on the plantation to lynchings leaving strange fruit hanging from southern trees. The oppression of Black women is more private - sexual violence, evictions and deadly institutional inequalities, such as being four times more likely to die in childbirth - and more difficult to capture on camera. Activist and professor Kimberlé Crenshaw started the #SayHerName campaign to draw attention to the Black women who were far more likely to be killed by the police than their white counterparts. I couldn't read this book without thinking how Breonna Taylor, who was killed in her home by police in 2020, would have been a rich subject. The horrific murders in Buffalo last weekend are a reminder of how a focus on racism can cloud larger issues. Killing sprees by White supremacist males are a symptom of structural racism but they are so violent and public that they, rather than the ways in which society kills Black people every day, become the basis of our discussions. In defence of the authors, they make a valiant effort to use Floyd's story to educate society about the ills of structural racism; for many readers this will be the first time they have encountered the history that shapes the present. But it is also a depressing reminder of how much work needs to be done, of the lessons that still need to be learned this deep into the 21st century.

Kirkus Review

An intimate look at the life of the Black man whose murder sparked worldwide protests and a reinvigoration of the movement for racial justice. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd died beneath the knee of White Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. The video of the killing made Floyd "a global icon for racial justice," write Washington Post journalists Samuels and Olorunnipa. Through painstaking research and more than 400 interviews, the authors sought to learn, "Who was George Floyd? And what was it like to live in his America?" As a child, Floyd dreamed of making a name for himself. "He was young, poor, and Black in America--a recipe for irrelevance in a society that tended to push boys like him onto its margins," write the authors. "But he assured everyone around him that, someday, he would make a lasting impact." As an adult, Floyd faced challenges related to addiction, mental health, education, employment, poverty, and criminal activity. Samuels and Olorunnipa trace more than 300 years of American history and Floyd's family history, placing his death within the context of the systemic racism that shaped his life. The authors got haircuts from Floyd's barber, visited the communities he called home, and talked to his extended family, friends, lovers, teachers, and acquaintances "to help the world to see Perry [as Floyd was known] as they saw him." Writing with cogency and compassion, the authors free Floyd from the realm of iconography, restoring his humanity. In these powerful pages, he emerges as a sensitive man with ambitions, successes, and failures. Both his loving nature and his despair are palpable, conveyed in heartbreaking detail. The recounting of his death is devastating to read, and the aftermath, despite his killer's conviction, is somber. Sadly, the congressional police reform bill named for Floyd remains unpassed. A brilliant biography, history book, and searing indictment of this country's ongoing failure to eradicate systemic racism. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Library Journal Review

Award-winning Washington Post journalists Samuels and Olorunnipa's illuminating biography of George Floyd offers a devastating look into America's systemic racism and militaristic policing. Narrator Dion Graham masterfully places listeners center stage during Floyd's life and murder. Meeting the always hopeful, very fallible, but sweet-natured Floyd and his ancestors, and learning about the ways they were victimized across generations is gut-wrenching. The background of Derek Chauvin and his family is presented in stark and disturbing contrast. Painting a full picture of how Floyd met his unnecessary death, the authors describe the family's beginnings, living in poverty in North Carolina, then optimistically moving to Houston, where they endured Texas's brutal and racist laws. Finally, they examine the reality of racism and policing under the veneer of a "liberal" Minneapolis. The conclusion follows resolute protesters throughout the country, the family's determination to change laws, and the trial, including those who bravely testified. Graham skillfully introduces a widely diverse cast and seamlessly transitions between chapters. He even injects moments of gentle humor. Graham gives a stunning performance here, including of Floyd's last heartbreaking minutes. VERDICT The authors present Floyd empathetically, but honestly, including his weaknesses and flaws. Audio transports listeners into Floyd's world, making his story even more immediate.--Susan G. Baird

Excerpts

Chapter 1 An Ordinary Day "It's Memorial Day. Y'all wanna grill?" George Perry Floyd Jr. wasn't particularly skilled at flipping burgers, but he was glad when his friend Sylvia Jackson suggested the diversion. The coronavirus pandemic had left him jobless and listless, a shadow of the gregarious man his friends and family once knew. He had been trying to avoid spending more time in the darkness, feeding the addiction he could not seem to escape. Jackson's modest home in North Minneapolis served as a family-friendly refuge. In May 2020, Floyd would spend most days on her couch, watching iCarly and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse with her three girls. Other times, he'd help her craft TikTok videos in hopes that one day they might go viral. "Let's do this one," she'd say, before dancing in her kitchen to the music of Mariah Carey's "Fantasy." Floyd would stare at the camera with mock-seriousness. They were often joined by two friends who had worked with them at the Salvation Army, a quarantine quartet meant to keep one another company as they waited for the world to go back to normal. Jackson, thirty-two, rolled her eyes as Floyd would go on about chopped-and-screwed music, the hip-hop genre that emerged from his Houston hometown. In the evening, Floyd would talk throughout whatever movie they were watching, then shower her with questions about the plot afterward. Her daughters loved camping, so they sometimes set up tents and slept under the stars. Other nights, they'd throw some hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill and play music, which was the plan on May 25, 2020, the day George Floyd would die. That day, Jackson had to work an eight-to-two shift as a security guard, so she tasked Floyd with picking up some lighter fluid and charcoal. She handed him the keys to her car, a 2001 navy-blue Mercedes-Benz SUV, and $60 to pay for supplies. "I'll be back home around three," Jackson told him. Jackson trusted Floyd; she had loaned him the car several times before. Floyd had no other plans, so he called his friend Maurice Hall around ten a.m. to see if he wanted to hang out. Many of Floyd's friends warned him about Hall, forty-two, who had been sleeping between hotels and his vehicle, dealing drugs while trying to avoid arrest warrants. Floyd had tried for years to move on from using, but Hall provided some kinship during this empty part of his life. The two men would smoke weed or ingest pills, which Floyd would chase down with Tylenol to dilute the impact. This was not the life either had envisioned when they left Houston's Third Ward for Minneapolis, seeking sobriety and opportunity. Hall told Floyd that he felt he had exhausted his options. Outstanding warrants had driven him underground, and he didn't want to turn himself in to police-he was a father now, with freckled, curly-haired children, and he couldn't stomach the idea of being locked up far away from them. Floyd could empathize with Hall's predicament: he felt guilty being so far away from his young daughter, Gianna. On the other end of the line, Hall told Floyd he had a day's worth of errands and suggested they complete his to-do list together. Hall was eager to jump into the Benz-he had been borrowing a friend's old truck ever since a woman he had hooked up with in his hotel room had driven off with his ride, taking his clothes, shoes, and video games with her. Hall suggested that Floyd meet him at a LensCrafters at the Rosedale Commons shopping center off Interstate 35 in nearby Roseville. Floyd could then follow him back to his hotel to exchange vehicles. "What do you mean I can't come in?" Floyd said to the sales representative when he arrived, turned away by the store's COVID-19 protocol. Hall bought a pair of clear-framed glasses and then stepped outside, where he saw Floyd dressed in a dirty tank top and blue sweatpants. "What up, gator?" Hall said, and the two shook hands. It was close to noon by this point, so they stopped at a Wendy's across the street. Hall ordered a burger with onion rings; Floyd got a Dave's Double. After they carried the food to the Benz and unwrapped the sandwiches, Floyd took out his phone to show Hall a new trend in the world of Southern hip-hop. "You know about sassa walking?" Floyd asked. The men ate their burgers and watched music videos of the emerging sound-it contained the heavy, gritty beats of chopped-and-screwed songs, but rappers laced lighter, faster rhymes over the tracks. Some of the videos demonstrated the dance itself, which combined salsa steps with pelvic thrusts. "It's gonna be big," Floyd said. Next, they went to drop off Hall's borrowed truck and chilled in his hotel room at the Embassy Suites in Brooklyn Center, just on the other side of the Mississippi River. They ate Cheetos as Hall waited for some buyers to pick up drugs. After someone came to pick up pills, Hall wanted to show off how successful he had become. He pulled out $2,000 in cash, telling Floyd he had made that much money in a single night. The display was more than a simple flex; Hall thought he might have a solution to Floyd's lingering malaise and hoped Floyd could use his connections in Houston to help boost his drug business. He said he believed he was offering Floyd a great opportunity. Floyd wasn't working; Hall had a bustling clientele, ready to pay. But Floyd didn't give the idea too much thought, Hall recalled. He didn't want the drug game to be a part of his life ever again. He knew he was a bad hustler. And his last stint in prison had been so traumatizing that he was terrified of what might happen if he got caught up in it anew. Hall also had to deliver drugs to buyers in different parts of the city, which was another reason he was happy to have Big Floyd around. Hall had become increasingly paranoid about driving himself to drug deals and thought Floyd could take the wheel. They made their way to another hotel twenty miles south, in Bloomington, where they ate sandwiches and drank Minute Maid Tropical Punch. Hall remembered Floyd smoking weed, snorting powdered fentanyl, and taking Tylenol. As Hall fielded calls from potential buyers, Floyd was busy having conversations of his own. One of the people Floyd was communicating with that day was Shawanda Hill, his former lover. "I want to see you," she texted him. Back on the north side, Jackson returned to her house to find no charcoal, no lighter fluid, no car, no Floyd. Concerned by her friend's absence, she called to check in. "Where are you?" Jackson asked. "I'm about to see my girl," Floyd said. "I'll be back tonight." Evening was beginning to fall, and Hall still wanted to drop off clothes at the dry cleaners, get a new cell phone, and shop for a tablet. He thought he could pick one up at a corner store on Minneapolis's south side called CUP Foods, which was known as a spot for buying and selling electronics for cheap. Floyd was a familiar face at CUP-managers said he'd stop by once or twice a week. He told his old lover that he was on his way to the store. Hill, forty-five, was thrilled at that news-she needed to buy a new battery for her cell phone anyway, and she hoped to sneak a little Floyd time before picking up her granddaughter, whom she had promised to babysit that day. Hill boarded the #5 bus and headed down to the corner of East Thirty-Eighth Street and Chicago Avenue. Hall and Floyd got to CUP Foods first. Hall walked to the back of the store, outside the view of the security cameras, and bought a tablet for $180. The manager said they needed some time to clean its hard drive, so instead of waiting around, Hall and Floyd headed about a mile north, to Lake Street, where Hall bought himself an iPhone 7. It was close to seven thirty p.m. when the two friends circled back to CUP. Floyd parked the Benz across the street, and Hall went inside to pick up his tablet. He walked down the store's long, narrow aisles and past rows of fruits and vegetables to the electronics section, where locked glass display cases showcased tablets, laptops, and prepaid cell phones in bright green boxes. The cashier told Hall he needed to give him a refund because he had been unable to clear off the old files. Hall was still trying to figure out if there were any other options when Floyd came in a few minutes later. Floyd meandered around the front of the store, fumbling with cash in his pocket and saying hello to almost every employee he came across. Floyd made his way through the aisles, passing display shelves that offered Oreo cookies and Little Debbie snacks. He then grabbed a half-rotten banana and said something to a teenage cashier, before bending over in a fit of laughter. The cashier, whose father was one of the store's owners, looked puzzled but shrugged it off and pointed his finger with a get-a-load-of-this-guy smirk. Christopher Martin, another teenager behind the register, immediately noticed Floyd's size-six foot six, 225 pounds, bulging biceps-accentuated by the snugly fitting black tank top he was wearing. Martin asked him if he played baseball. Floyd stuttered and rambled for a moment before responding that he played football. Martin, tall and slender with light-brown skin, had seen drunk and high customers come into the store before, and he thought Floyd might be under the influence. Around that time, Hill walked inside and glimpsed Floyd's muscular silhouette. "Oh my God, Floyd," she said. "Baby," Floyd said, "I was just thinking about you." He wrapped his arms around her, and she kissed him where her lips met his body: on his chest, at the valley of his tank top. Hill, though, was surprised to see Floyd dressed that way, knowing his mother had taught him to look presentable when he was out on the street. Hill asked why he was wearing a tank top and baggy pants. "I've been moving," Floyd explained. And before all the errands with Hall, Floyd said he had been playing basketball. Floyd suggested that maybe they could head to a park and catch up. After Hill told him that she needed to watch her granddaughter, Floyd offered to give her a ride over there. Hill smirked. "I was thinking I was going to get me some," she recalled. Hill and Hall had never met each other before, but the trio ended up leaving the store together. Before they left, Floyd also bought a pack of menthol cigarettes. "He gave him the money, I saw them take the money," Hill said. "They give him the cigarettes, and they give him the change. We walked out the store, went in the car, we were in the car, and we talked like, I don't know, a good eight minutes . . ." Back inside CUP Foods, Martin lifted the $20 bill above his head and held it up against a light. He noticed it had the bluish hue of a $100 bill and suspected it was a fake. He took the bill and showed it to his manager, who asked him to go outside and summon Floyd back to the store. Because Floyd was a regular at CUP, the manager figured it was a mistake that an old customer would be willing to fix. Inside the Benz, both Hill and Hall sensed the day's errands were catching up with Floyd. While they were chatting, he started to fall asleep in the driver's seat-a trait his friends said was typical. Hall grew nervous. Because the corner was known for gang activity, he didn't want to draw the attention of any police. "We gotta go from here," Hall said. Just then, Martin and another teenage employee from CUP walked up to the car on the passenger's side. They told Hall that the boss wanted to see them because the money was counterfeit. "I didn't give him that," Hall said. The cashiers pointed to Floyd, who was still slouched over, struggling to stay awake, as the culprit. "Floyd, did you really do that?" Hill asked in surprise, since Floyd was not known to cheat people out of money. "Why is this happening to me?" Floyd said, before brushing off the requests to go back inside. Martin gave up and walked away with the other employee. A few minutes later, Martin returned to the car with two other employees, again asking Floyd to come back inside. But Hill and Hall thought Floyd was too exhausted to understand what was happening. "We kept trying to wake him up," Hill recalled. She searched her pockets but didn't have any more cash on her. She apologized to the employees and promised that Floyd would speak to the manager as soon as he woke up. After a few minutes, Floyd gathered his bearings. He shook himself and patted his pockets for the car keys. "Floyd, look, that little boy said that money wasn't real," Hill told him. "They about to call the police." They already had. She glanced across the street and saw two police officers walking into the store. Minutes later, they stepped out. "They're moving around a lot," one of the officers said to his partner as they approached the car. He gripped his flashlight. Inside the vehicle, Floyd had started to panic, still searching for the keys. Hall was panicking, too, knowing he had drugs in the car that he needed to hide. "I'm stuffing and tucking," Hall recalled. "So, the next thing you know, the cop is on his side, all you hear is-boom!" At the sound of the flashlight hitting the window, Floyd turned to the officer with the terrified look of a man whose mama had told him what could happen when a Black man encountered the wrong police officer. Excerpted from His Name Is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Robert Samuels, Toluse Olorunnipa All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.