It’s hard to believe it’s already been five years.
Five years since George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police. Five years since the world stopped, held its breath, and watched — many for the first time — as the life was choked out of a Black man in broad daylight on a Minneapolis street corner.
But for me, it wasn’t a shock. As a Black man, as an activist, I had already seen too much. I had marched for Jamar Clark. I had grieved for Philando Castile. I had stood on the front lines, time and again, fighting for justice for those whose lives were taken too soon.
Still, what happened to George Floyd hit different.
This wasn’t a gunshot. It wasn’t a split-second decision. This was a slow, deliberate execution — officers pinning down his neck, his back, his legs, pressing the very breath out of his body as he cried out, “I can’t breathe,” and called for his mother with what little life he had left.
That cry shook me to my core. It brought me to my knees, to tears, to a place of deep hopelessness. And yet, it also called something up in me. A fire. A duty.
As someone who’s spent several years on the front lines of this struggle, I’ve learned to live with the pain while continuing the fight. But there was something about that moment during the pandemic, when the world was watching and the news cycle couldn’t look away, that felt like maybe, just maybe, the world was finally waking up.
For a moment, I believed that our children might not have to fight the same fight. For a moment, I saw a glimmer of possibility.
But America, as it often does, reminded us who it is.
We watched a new administration roll back the gains we fought for. Consent decrees paused. Police accountability diluted. The same old systems, dressed in new language, continue to do what they’ve always done — police and punish Black life without consequence.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
I still carry the trauma of that summer. I can still feel the sting of tear gas in my eyes. I can still hear the pop of less-lethal rounds fired into peaceful crowds. I remember walking the streets of my own city, armed not just for protection, but because I refused to let white supremacists — and yes, infiltrators sent to undermine our movement — go unchallenged.
It felt like a war zone. Because it was one.
Five years later, I am still healing. So is my community. Healing from the weight of bearing witness to evil. Healing from the heartbreak of betrayal by those in power who promised change, and by a country that still cannot fully see our humanity.
And yet, I still have hope.
Not because the system has changed — because in so many ways, it hasn’t. But because we are still here. Still fighting. Still building. Still loving one another through the pain. Still protecting our communities. Still speaking truth to power.
To my fellow Black men: We need each other. We need to teach, to listen, to heal, and to speak to one another with love. This fight is not just for ourselves, but for our women, our children, and our ancestors. It is a fight for dignity. For life.
George Floyd should be here today. So should Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, and so many others. But their memory fuels our movement.
As I wrote years ago in a college essay, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” But I refuse to let that be the final word.
Because as long as we’re still breathing, we still have the power to change everything.
Marques Armstrong is the CEO of Hope & Healing Counseling Services. For more information, visit www.love-hope-healing.com.