George Floyd's murder and global Black Lives Matter protests
- Date
- May–June 2020
- Category
- Social & demographic
- Region
- Global
- Era
- Contemporary
- Significance
On 25 May 2020 George Floyd, a Black man, was murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes; bystander video circulated worldwide.
The killing ignited the largest protest movement in United States history, with an estimated 15 to 26 million participants, and spread to over 2,000 cities in more than 60 countries. The Black Lives Matter movement, founded in 2013 by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Ayo Tometi after the acquittal of Trayvon Martin's killer and propelled by the 2014 deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, reached a global peak. Demonstrations from London and Paris to Sydney and Tokyo confronted racial injustice, policing, and colonial legacies, prompting statue removals, institutional reckonings, and policy debates, alongside significant backlash. The 2020 mobilisation became a defining episode in contemporary social-movement history and in debates over race, justice, and the power of viral video and social media.
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Related social & demographic events
- The COVID-19 pandemic11 March 2020
- The AIDS Epidemic Is First Identified1981
- The #MeToo movement goes viralOctober 2017 onward
- The Great Leap Forward and the Great Chinese Famine1958–1962
- Obergefell v. Hodges legalises same-sex marriage across the US26 June 2015
- The European migrant and refugee crisis2015
Further reading
The wider story
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Global best-seller on how our species, its populations and societies remade the world.
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