Minneapolis marked six years Monday since George Floyd was killed at 38th and Chicago, and for the first time the anniversary fell on the exact date of his death, May 25, 2026. Floyd died in an incident involving former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin.
Selwyn Jones walked George Floyd Square with FOX 9 on Sunday, taking in the place that has become one of the most closely watched corners in the city. Jones said he was watching television when he first saw the attack and did not realize at first that the man on screen was his nephew. “I was sitting in front of a television watching this, this black man getting assaulted by the police, and me not knowing who it was, and my sister, you know, called me, and she said, Did you see what they did to Perry?” he said.
Jones said the anniversary still carries the weight of all the lives lost in incidents tied to police violence and the broader reckoning that followed Floyd’s death. “Thoughts, of all these people, lives that have been taken because of one reason or another,” he said. “Not enough change, but as long as we keep fighting, as long as this event keeps happening, yes, and showing unity.”
Angela Harrelson said Monday would take her back to the day Floyd died, down to the people she was with and the conversations she was having. “Now Monday is going to take me back to where I was that day, who I was talking to that day, what was going on around me that day,” she said. She added that real progress would mean a day when the slogan that came to symbolize the movement is no longer needed: “When we get to the point with all of this, where we don’t have to say the words Black Lives Matter, then that’s when we know we have arrived.”
The anniversary also arrived as the city prepared for a new phase at George Floyd Square. Construction was scheduled to begin after the commemoration on a flexible open-street design. Harrelson said she wants the area to remain a pedestrian plaza and said it should not be over commercialized. “I wanted a pedestrian plaza, you know, I wanted to be as sacred as I can get it without over commercializing it,” she said, adding that business opportunities should not overwhelm the memorial. Jones returned to the moment that changed the world and said Floyd’s legacy still comes back to the length of the killing itself. “People have their thoughts about who he was and what he was, and I always come back to the nine minutes and 29 seconds, because the nine minutes and 29 seconds is what impacted the whole world,” he said.
George Floyd Square remains a focal point for reflection, activism and remembrance in Minneapolis, and the family’s words made clear that the meaning of the place is still being fought over even as the city moves to redesign it. The next test is whether the coming construction can honor that history without sanding it down.
