Then on May 25 in Minneapolis George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man, is killed on the street by a police officer who relentlessly kneeled on his neck for eight minutes, despite Floyd repeatedly saying he could not breathe. Floyd died at the scene.
The resulting protests and riots, many violent with bloodshed, fires and looting, have rocked and disrupted America. Statues of historic Americans linked with slavery and racism (accurately or not in some cases) have been vandalized, toppled, burned and destroyed.
He may have been South Carolina’s most prominent political figure ever as a 19th century U.S. senator and Vice President. But his pro-slavery stance and the policies he championed to uphold and try to expand slavery have long been controversial and upsetting to Blacks.
I took this photo with my iPhone in January 2018 while sitting in the Starbucks at the Francis Marion Hotel. What I liked about it was how it is “so Charleston” with its images reflecting religion (the “Holy City” with so many church steeples), the city’s rich history represented by the Calhoun monument, and a palmetto tree, which is a state symbol and on the South Carolina flag.
