Who was George Floyd? New book captures full scope of his life and family’s legacy

“We left no stone unturned,” Olorunnipa said.

CNN interviewed Olorunnipa about what he learned in his research about Floyd and his family roots, how racism impacted his life and what readers can gain from reading the book.

This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What motivated you to want to write this book?

Who was George Floyd as a person?

He was a complex and complicated man, someone who was always striving for a better life, he had a number of challenges starting with poverty. He was born in a poor neighborhood, he grew up in poverty in Houston’s Third Ward and was always striving to find a way out, to make a way for his family, his mother and his siblings. But because of the way society was set up, it was difficult for him to escape, it was difficult for him to chart a pathway to stability. It came in the form of underfunded schools he attended, it came in the form of the criminal justice system that was waiting for him as soon as he finished school. He also didn’t have good healthcare. Despite all those challenges he was always striving for a better life. He was a kind-hearted person who would go around telling people ‘I love you’ even if he didn’t know them. He was also a large man and did not want to be seen as intimidating.

Was there anything that surprised you during your research about Floyd’s life?

One of the things that I found surprising was that George Floyd’s family history includes a period of great wealth. We researched his ancestry and seven generations of his family and his great great grandfather actually worked hard for 30 years with a big family and was able to buy 500 acres of land in eastern North Carolina. That made him one of the wealthiest Black men in his community. He unfortunately had all of that land stripped away during a period of racial terror where land loss among Black farmers was rampant and he was a victim of that and lost all of his land. Because of that, his children and grandchildren worked as sharecroppers. George Floyd came into the world as poor, Black boy from the South and not because his family hadn’t worked hard, but because they were the victims of racism. As a result of that, he started life behind, he was born with two strikes and with the decks stacked against him.

What did you learn about Floyd’s experiences with racism prior to being killed by a Minneapolis police officer?

What do you hope readers gain from reading your book?

I hope they feel motivated as they read about his life and how he slowly died over several decades, suffocating under the systemic pressures he faced as a child as a young man and as an older man. I hope people feel that same level of motivation to do something whether it’s to write their congressman or pay more attention to some of these systemic issues. There are millions of other George Floyds out there that might not be brutalized by police in the same way on camera but are still suffering from a number of different challenges. I hope people realize that we all have a responsibility to fix the broken systems.

Reflecting on the last two years, how do you think George Floyd’s life has shaped how we view racism?

There are a lot of people who did not feel that systemic racism was an issue and now they are more willing to engage in some of these conversations whether it’s the corporate world or cultural institutions. But at the same time, we are seeing a backlash from people upset that this conversation is shifting. They want to ban books and they are saying we should all be concerned about critical race theory. So it’s a constant battle to make sure people are understanding the country’s history and making an effort to put us on a better course. But it’s a constant struggle and I think that’s something that’s going to be a part of George Floyd’s legacy. We have the ability to shape how that legacy is remembered based on what we do today. We all have a role to play in deciding what this country will look like in the years to come.