For many Black Americans, the conviction of Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd inspired feelings of relief and a sense that the verdict might have been an anomaly.
“I hope it will change some things. I’m praying it’s a steppingstone,” said Christin Hickman, a 35-year-old from Minneapolis. “But it didn’t change with Emmett Till. It didn’t change with Rodney King. So, you know, I’m not holding my breath.”
Mr. Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, was convicted of all counts in the death of Mr. Floyd, which inspired nationwide protests and debate after it was captured by bystanders on video.
Like the 1995 O.J. Simpson murder trial and the Rodney King police-brutality case in 1992, the three-week Chauvin trial was closely watched and viewed by many Americans as a watershed moment in U.S. race relations, even hearkening to Emmett Till, a Black teenager who was murdered in Mississippi for purportedly offending a white woman in the 1950s. That episode, and the lack of accountability for the killers, helped galvanize the civil-rights movement.
“I wasn’t expecting the guilty verdict, not on all counts,” said Melina Abdullah, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Los Angeles chapter. “I’m overwhelmed…I feel like we have to take a moment and say that this is a win.”
The case stoked raw feelings between many Black Americans and police, and prompted calls from many corners for overhauls of law enforcement. It inspired widespread mass protests last summer, some of which turned violent.
“It shows that one badge, in this case, was not a shield for being held accountable,” said NAACP President Derrick Johnson. “It’s an important step in the right direction.”
It is rare, Mr. Johnson pointed out, for a police officer to be convicted of murder or manslaughter. But he said that recent killings by police of Daunte Wright in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center and of 13-year-old Adam Toledo in Chicago suggest that the verdict won’t offer an easy path toward reducing police killings of Black Americans.
“We have a history of fighting [for] full compliance with our Constitution,” he said. “This is a systemic problem that must be addressed.”
The verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial was celebrated in Minneapolis on Tuesday.
Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images
The conviction prompted strong emotions in Minneapolis on Tuesday.
Photo: Bridget Bennett for The Wall Street JournalOutside the Hennepin County Government Center, where National Guard members lined the steps, there were loud, sustained cheers as the verdict was read. “All three counts!” rose from the crowd.
Elsewhere, many Black Americans were glued to the trial. Keisha Jones, a mother of two in Houston who took her young daughters to Washington over the summer for a civil-rights march led by the Rev. Al Sharpton, said she watched the trial each day on Facebook Live.
“As I’m going through watching this, it just doesn’t seem like things are in the process of changing, and all you can do is hope and pray,” she said, adding that the police killing of Mr. Wright in a Minneapolis suburb earlier this month—while the Chauvin trial was proceeding—showed progress would be slow. Authorities in that instance said that it was an accident and that the officer mistook her gun for a Taser. Prosecutors have charged the officer, who has resigned, with second-degree manslaughter.
Ms. Jones, a 33-year-old travel insurance customer-service agent, said her views on defunding the police had changed since last summer, when she was in favor of abolishing traditional police forces altogether.
“Having time to reassess my thoughts and thinking: ‘Do I think that defunding the police would actually change how my children were protected, my uncles, my brothers?’” she said. “I don’t.” Instead, she said, she would like to see police departments take steps such as improving and expanding de-escalation training for officers.
In Baltimore’s predominantly Black Penn North neighborhood, George Williams, a 63-year-old retiree, stood not far from where Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Black man, was arrested in 2015 for allegedly possessing an illegal knife. He later sustained a fatal spinal cord injury while being transported in a police van. Prosecutors charged six officers in his death but didn’t secure convictions.
“Repeatedly in the past, having it on film meant nothing,” Mr. Williams said. “We’ve still got a long ways to go. But this was one giant step forward.”
In Washington, D.C., a crowd gathered along a section of 16th Street NW that was renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza in honor of last summer’s protests.
People gathered at Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.
Photo: evelyn hockstein/Reuters“It marks a beginning of something new,” said Ron Steinhoff, 24, who rode his bike to the plaza after work. He said he grew up in Minneapolis, a few miles from where Mr. Floyd was killed, and was anxious all day before the verdict. “I was not focusing at all. It was so heartbreaking to see the video. This hopefully marks a change where police brutality is held accountable.”
Reggie Burgess, the first Black chief in the South Carolina city of North Charleston, praised the verdict, saying, “The same system I protect and I serve has worked for this country.”
Last summer’s demonstrations, often organized by groups associated with Black Lives Matter, pursued a more aggressive agenda than earlier civil-rights groups had in the past. Among other common demands were defunding police departments and redirecting money to social services.
The results were mixed. An effort by the Minneapolis city council to dismantle the police department lost momentum in the fall as crime rose. But in Los Angeles, city leaders committed $250 million to investing in Black and minority communities, including some funds redirected from the police department.
Sam Barton, a 23-year-old plumber’s apprentice, was a first-time protest leader in Philadelphia last spring. He said he still spreads the word about marches over police brutality—such as a recent one in response to the police killing of Adam Toledo in Chicago—through his social media accounts that gained followers a year ago.
He decided against watching the Chauvin trial. “It’s just draining to watch something like that,” he said. “It’s very very triggering. That could be any of us.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Barton called even a guilty verdict on second-degree murder—the most serious charge Mr. Chauvin faced—“more of a symbolic victory.”
—Douglas Belkin, Erin Ailworth, Vivian Salama, Alex Leary and Scott Calvert contributed to this article.
Write to Joshua Jamerson at joshua.jamerson+1@wsj.com and Arian Campo-Flores at arian.campo-flores@wsj.com
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Black Americans Greet Derek Chauvin Conviction With Relief, Caution - The Wall Street Journal
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