Friend, One year ago today, George Floyd was murdered by former police officer, Derek Chauvin. George was a father, a son, a brother, a friend, and a Black man in America who should still be alive today. After years of protesting police brutality, learning about the cruelty of George Floyd’s death broke my heart - again. For years the story has been the same. When police apply lethal force to a Black person - a child playing at the playground, a woman asleep in her home, a man going for a jog, a child returning home from grabbing snacks, a man being stopped for tinted windows, a woman being stopped for changing lanes without signaling, a man shopping for a toy, and on, and on, and on - in the instances the offending officer is charged with a crime, they rarely face conviction. Watching a system constantly devalue the lives of Black people is heartbreaking. Because of Darnella Frazier’s bravery - an ordinary young woman who saw Floyd struggle for breath, understood the injustice of what she was seeing, and courageously recorded the tragedy in an effort to make sure everyone could see what she saw - the world bore witness to this system’s cruelty. As people watched Ms. Frazier’s video, the people of Minneapolis responded the same way people responded in Ferguson, responded in New York, in Oakland, in Cleveland, in Baltimore, and in Louisville - with protective love and protest. People across the country, and then around the world, watched the video of George Floyd begging for his life. Protests erupted in big cities, in small towns, on every continent. People around the globe demanded accountability for the loss of another Black life to state-sanctioned violence. Accountability for another Black life on American soil lost to police. The most powerful healing agent is love. Though my heart still breaks at the lives lost to police violence, the global demand for justice - love made public - offered me much needed healing. By activating, mobilizing, and inspiring communities to fight for change we will not bring George Floyd back, but we will make certain that the legacy of his death are policies rooted in love and compassion that result in true safety for our communities. The shift in conversations around police violence, funding mental health programs, finding alternatives to gun violence in our communities and policing is all evidence that the power of the people organizing is still our greatest tool for social change and community healing. Since George Floyd’s passing we have put pressure on our elected leaders to reconsider public safety, to center our communities in deciding how we can be safe. It is our duty to maintain that pressure, and there is still much work to be done. We must continue to say his name and put our faith into action for justice. | 
