May 25, 2020: Remembering when George Floyd’s murder ignited Milwaukee and the nation five years ago

From the Milwaukee Independent

The cellphone footage from Minneapolis, showing a police officer’s knee pressed into George Floyd’s neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds, circulated within hours.

By the evening of May 25, 2020, the video had become a visceral symbol of racial injustice, provoking immediate outrage across the country. Milwaukee, a city with its own long history of police violence and racial segregation, erupted in protest just as the nation did.

Within the first week, peaceful demonstrations took hold in downtown Milwaukee, as tensions grew between police and protesters. Crowds gathered near Red Arrow Park and marched through the Third Ward, chanting Floyd’s name and demanding accountability for law enforcement officers nationwide.

The sight of militarized police forming barricades and deploying tear gas at protesters brought the city’s unresolved wounds to the surface. The protests continued, attracting people from all over the area to participate.

By May 29, police used rubber bullets and chemical irritants to disperse crowds that formed a couple of blocks from the Milwaukee Police Department’s District 1 headquarters. Curfews were enacted, but protesters defied them. As social media amplified real-time scenes of peaceful resistance, thousands more joined nightly demonstrations.

Businesses downtown boarded their windows. Some protests were met with aggressive dispersal tactics, deepening the public’s mistrust of institutions already viewed with skepticism.

Elsewhere in Wisconsin, the city of Madison also witnessed intense protests, including property damage and the toppling of statues. Yet it was Kenosha, just 40 miles south of Milwaukee, that would soon become the epicenter of the national reckoning weeks later.

On August 23, 2020, Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, was shot seven times in the back by a White police officer in Kenosha. The incident was captured on video and shared widely, reigniting the outrage that had followed Floyd’s murder. Within hours, Kenosha became a new flashpoint. Protesters clashed with police in riot gear. Government buildings were set ablaze. Vehicles burned in the streets.

Continue reading to learn how Milwaukee activists responded.

Discover the Black History that’s often hidden.

See how people are reflecting on the anniversary in our breaking news section.