George Floyd Statue Defaced at Union Square
posted by Ty Hamer-Yelverton | October 18, 2021 | In NewsIn an effort to increase awareness and assist the end of systematic racism in America, three statues were unveiled in honor of the sacrifice of the late U.S. Representative John Lewis, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd at Union Square in the boroughs of Manhattan on October 1.
On Sunday, October 3, at approximately 10:15 a.m., the statue of George Floyd was defaced by an unknown skater with gray paint, according to authorities during the investigation while viewing the surveillance footage, the Associated Press reported.
This is the second time George Floyd’s statue was defaced. Five days after the unveiling of Floyd’s statue on Juneteenth at Flatbush, Avenue located in Brooklyn, the statue of George Floyd was defaced with black paint and alleged logo of a white supremacist group, which prompted the move of the statue to Union Square, where, last year, people gathered to protest injustice. Now Union Square is place for peaceful discourse to bring awareness to the socially unjust system of American racism.
George Floyd, who was born in Fayetteville, NC, was killed in police custody in Minneapolis, MN on Memorial Day of 2020. The footage of Floyd’s death under the knee of now-convicted officer Derek Chauvin brought an uproar of awareness to the importance of the lives of African Americans and highlighted the ongoing relationship of police brutality in the Black community.
In March 2020, Breonna Taylor, an African American medical worker was shot and killed during a police raid in Louisville, Kentucky.
The late, great U.S. Representative John Lewis passed away on July 17, 2020. Rep. Lewis marched during “Bloody Sunday” in 1965. The march was initially from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama however the participants of the march were attacked, and Rep. Lewis suffered a brain fracture. Rep. Lewis served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for the 5th congressional district in the state of Georgia.
The statutes of Representative Lewis and Breonna Taylor were not defaced during that time.
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