His Name Is George Floyd

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FINALIST FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION

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

“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.“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 . . . a brilliantly revealing portrait of the structures of poverty, land theft and racism that shaped not only Floyd but also his kinship networks in the South. . . . Impressive.”
—New York Times, Editors’ Choice

“[T]he definitive work on who Floyd was and what his murder triggered. Gripping, heartbreaking, revelatory.”
—Oprah Daily

“[A]n expertly researched and excellent biography, a necessary and enlightening read for all.”
—The Atlantic
 
“Masterful, thorough and even-handed.”
—Associated Press

“A full, nuanced picture of the man whose murder sparked a movement.”
—People

“Sometimes a single book can change a national discussion, and certainly this is one. With diligence, respect, unflinching courage, His Name Is George Floyd affords tender, trenchant testimony to a man’s life and the lessons in the legacies of racism that took it.”
—Barnes & Noble, Best Book of 2022

“An incredibly powerful biography.”
—Walter Isaacson, Amanpour & Co.
 
“This is a profound book that everyone in this country needs to read.”
—Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
 
“Sad, tragic, and such a good read.”
—Yamiche Alcindor, PBS Washington Week
 
“A feat of fresh reporting, and vivid, contextual contemporary history.”
—Chicago Tribune

“Detailed, vivid and moving.”
—The Washington Post

“Impeccably researched . . . 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. This multifaceted and exceptionally informative account is both a moving testament to Floyd and a devastating indictment of America’s racial inequities.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
 
“Writing with cogency and compassion, the authors free Floyd from the realm of iconography, restoring his humanity . . . A brilliant biography, history book, and searing indictment of this country’s ongoing failure to eradicate systemic racism.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
 
“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 . . . A wrenching chronicle of one of the most devastating events of our time . . . vital and illuminating.”
—Booklist, starred review

“In painstaking detail and textured storytelling, Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa reveal how George Floyd fought to live his entire life. Since we know George Floyd’s death with tragic clarity, we must know Floyd’s America—and life—with tragic clarity. His Name Is George Floyd is 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

 “A vivid, necessary portrait of a Black man in America, in all its nuance, tragedy, and fullness. In his death, George Floyd’s name became a rallying cry for the entire world. And this extraordinary book brings to life, with thoroughly reported detail, the indispensable context of systemic racism in which he lived.”
—Abby Phillip, CNN anchor and senior political correspondent

“In the years that have passed since his dying declaration—I can’t breathe—we have come to know George Floyd as a symbol but have known little of George Floyd the man. In a monumental work of reporting and storytelling, Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa reveal who George Floyd was in life, and the extent to which his death was the result not just of the callous choices of a single police officer but of four hundred years of societal decisions to devalue Black life. Amid a raging pandemic and urgent questions about our democracy, there has been little time to mourn George Floyd. The pages of this book provide us all with that that long-overdue opportunity.” 
—Wesley Lowery, Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter and author of They Can’t Kill Us All: The Story of the Struggle for Black Lives

“His Name Is George Floyd is part eulogy, part elegy, and part psalm. It dares to reclaim the humanity of George Floyd while simultaneously forcing the reader to confront a truth saturated with sorrow and with elements of hope that many in the nation refuse to accept. If we as a nation refuse to ‘say his name’ and face this tragic moment, we shall condemn our democracy to the lower circle of Dante’s Inferno. Let us ‘say his name’ and thoughtfully read and be moved by this powerful work of journalism and prose.”
—Reverend Otis Moss III

“This book is a wondrous feat of vivid writing and deep reporting, from the way it leads the reader through George Floyd’s final fateful day on earth to its masterly account of Floyd’s hopes and frustrations in the larger context of race in America.”
—David Maraniss, Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter and author of Barack Obama: The Story
 
“His Name Is George Floyd is a sobering, deeply intimate account of George Floyd’s life and all that he had to carry and contend with as a Black man coming of age in America. In a remarkable feat of reporting, Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa help us come to know Floyd as a full, rich, complicated human being, whose murder and whose journey in life forces us to reckon with the unquestionable truth that race still very much matters in this country. Thank you Samuels and Olorunnipa for taking us behind the headlines.”
—Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other AmericaRobert Samuels is a national political enterprise reporter for The Washington Post who focuses on the intersection of politics, policy, and people. He previously wrote stories about life in the District for the Post’s social issues team. Samuels joined the Post in 2011 after spending nearly five years working 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.

1. The history of George Floyd’s family can be traced to North Carolina, the state where his ancestors were enslaved. Floyd’s great-great-grandfather, Hillery Thomas Stewart Sr., managed to amass a significant amount of wealth after emancipation thanks to the land he owned—land which was then seized from him. Why do you think Stewart was targeted in such a way, and what conditions made it so easy for the land to be taken from him? In your view, what repercussions did this event have on the economic condition of Floyd’s family line—and other similar families—across generations?

2. The Floyd family’s new life in Texas took them to Cuney Homes, otherwise known as “the Bricks,” a government housing project in Houston’s Third Ward. What do you believe the authors mean when they say that life in the Bricks was “a modern sand trap of poverty from which Floyd struggled to escape?” How do you see some of the government housing policies mentioned creating or influencing this condition?

3. In his segregated high school, Floyd saw sports—not education—as the key to achieving success. In your view, how did educational policies in Houston, the last large school district in America to desegregate, steer him toward trying to find an alternative path to financial stability?

4. Chapter 5 describes some of Floyd’s run-ins with police officers, many of which disproportionately targeted his neighborhood. Why do you believe he and others in his neighborhood were arrested by law enforcement with such frequency? In your view, what was the impact of the police’s focus on low-level drug crimes? How would you rethink policing in Houston’s Third Ward and other similar communities?

5. In 2007, Floyd was accused of—and eventually imprisoned for—an armed robbery. The victim, Aracely Henriquez, tentatively picked Floyd out of a lineup, identifying him as the man who had attacked her in her home using an investigation method which is no longer authorized in Houston for law enforcement. Why do you think this method was prohibited? What do you see as its potential shortcomings?

6. Why do you believe Floyd’s friends counseled him to take a plea deal for the armed robbery, even though they did not believe he was guilty of being the gunman? In his place, do you believe you would do the same? Why or why not?

7. George Floyd served his five-year sentence in two prisons, Bartlett and Diboll, that were privately managed rather than run by the government. At the time of Floyd’s incarceration, prisons were becoming rapidly privatized across the state of Texas. What do you see as some of the government’s possible motivations for turning to private prisons in the first place? What do you think Floyd’s story reveals about the human costs of privatizing prison systems? What does it reveal about the prison system more broadly?

8. Chapter 6 dives into the life of Derek Chauvin. In some ways, there were parallels between Floyd’s and Chauvin’s upbringings: in the structures of their families; in their struggles in the school system. Examining Chauvin’s early days, what differences do you notice in his situation that allowed for him to benefit from broader opportunities in life? What roles do you see class, race, and place as playing in the two men’s different future paths?

9. Former officer Gwen Gunter suggests that the Minneapolis Police Department needed to be aggressive in the 1980s and 1990s because of the high level of gang activity in the precinct. What do you think were the pros and cons to this approach?

10. As a police officer, Derek Chauvin had a long history of using neck restraint techniques and other violent tactics, leading to multiple allegations of excessive force. Why, then, do you believe he was allowed to continue working as an officer despite the many complaints against him?

11. In Chapter 6, many cite the convoluted process of investigating civilian complaints against officers and how rarely those investigations lead to any disciplinary action. How do you think the lack of disciplinary measures influenced how police acted on Minneapolis’ streets?

12. When Floyd was released from prison, in many ways he still wasn’t a man who was completely free—as a man with a record, he had difficulty finding employment and reintegrating into life beyond the cell walls. If you were in his place, what steps would you try to take to change your situation? In what ways do you see the difficulties that followed his release influencing his eventual decision to move to Minneapolis?

13. Turning Point, the rehabilitation program that Floyd joined in Minneapolis, was created to serve the needs of Black men specifically. What do you think of founder Peter Hayden’s approach? What do you think the authors meant when they wrote that “being Black in America is its own preexisting condition”?

14. The authors discuss the concept of the Minnesota Paradox, noting that the “longtime egalitarianist state still had some of the most glaring disparities between Blacks and Whites in the country.” What were some of Floyd’s hopes and expectations for his new life in Minneapolis, and what were the realities that he encountered there instead? What do you think those difficulties revealed about the ability for Americans, particularly African Americans, to turn a new page on their lives? If you were in Floyd’s place, what might it feel like to come to terms with these differences, and what effect do you think that might have on you?

15. What are some of the ways that Floyd’s size impacted how people treated him? What steps do you think could have been taken for those who interacted him to overcome those stereotypes and prejudices?

16. Why do you believe Floyd’s struggles with drug dependency were brought up in the courtroom during Derek Chauvin’s trial—and why do you think Courteney Ross may have been uncomfortable with being forced to discuss it? Do you see his history with drug use as having a bearing on the circumstances of his death? If you were in Ross’s place, how might you have reacted to this line of questioning?

17. Floyd is far from the only person whose life was taken too soon by police violence in recent years. Why do you think Floyd’s death galvanized such a global response?  What other factors might have caused there to be increased attention to this case?

18. In your view, what is George Floyd’s legacy when it comes to the fight for racial justice in America? Are there conversations that you, your family, or your peers have had since his death that you had not been able to have before? What actionable steps do you feel able to take to contribute to a more equitable society?

19. In Chapter 14, Reverend Jesse Jackson reminds readers of the progress that the country has made when it comes to eradicating racism and tells Philonise Floyd, “No matter what, remember: We’re still winning.” Do you agree with Jackson that the country is getting better at addressing systemic racism in the United States? Why or why not?

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.

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