--- title: 10 Experts on How the George Floyd Protests Fit Into History description: Experts on the history of race in America weigh in on the moments you should know about if you want to understand the George Floyd protests. canonical: https://time.com/5846727/george-floyd-protests-history/ author: Olivia B. Waxman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-06-04T20:32:08.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T08:49:56.411Z article:section: History og:title: 10 Experts on How the George Floyd Protests Fit Into History og:description: Many are looking to history for clues about how to understand the evolving moment. Here's what to know og:url: https://time.com/5846727/george-floyd-protests-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde8525cfdef9c615/698a0ef386f68e2b296eed2b/protests-civil-rights-black-lives-matter-1960-2020.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Protests 1960s and 2020 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 10 Experts on How the George Floyd Protests Fit Into History twitter:description: Many are looking to history for clues about how to understand the evolving moment. Here's what to know twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde8525cfdef9c615/698a0ef386f68e2b296eed2b/protests-civil-rights-black-lives-matter-1960-2020.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 10 Experts on Where the George Floyd Protests Fit Into American History  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Jun 4, 2020 8:32 PM UTC  Left: Between 200,000 and 500,000 demonstrators march down Constitution Avenue during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Washington D.C., Aug. 28, 1963; Right: Protesters gather in Harlem to protest the recent death of George Floyd on May 30, 2020 in New York City. Left: Between 200,000 and 500,000 demonstrators march down Constitution Avenue during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Washington D.C., Aug. 28, 1963; Right: Protesters gather in Harlem to protest the recent death of George Floyd on May 30, 2020 in New York City.Hulton Archive/Getty Images; David 'Dee' Delgado—Getty Images  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Jun 4, 2020 8:32 PM UTC Not quite two weeks after the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died after a now-former Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck, it’s already clear that what happened to him—and the protests that followed—will be in history books someday. The moment is not only [a striking turning point](https://time.com/5847967/george-floyd-protests-trump/) in an ongoing Black Lives Matter movement against police brutality, but also set apart by a global pandemic that is disproportionately affecting African Americans. But how exactly these events will be framed is still to be determined, by factors such as how long demonstrations continue globally and whether any major legislation is passed as a result. In the meantime, many are [looking to history](https://time.com/5846321/nixon-trump-law-and-order-history/) for clues about how to understand the evolving moment. Comparisons to the 1960s, and that era’s fight for racial equality, have been plentiful—but that period was just one chapter in a civil rights movement that’s almost as old as America is. TIME asked ten experts on the history of race in the United States to weigh in on which moments from the American past can help us understand today. **Simon Balto, author of** **_Policing Black Chicago from Red Summer to Black Power_** **and Assistant Professor of History at the University of Iowa:** --- > “” --- **Kellie Carter Jackson, author of** **_Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence_** **and Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College:** --- > “” --- **Duchess Harris, author of** **_Racially Writing the Republic: Racists, Race Rebels, and Transformations of American Identity_** **and Professor of American Studies at Macalester College** **_:_** --- > “” --- **Tyran K. Steward, Assistant Professor of History at Williams College, who is writing a book tentatively entitled** **_The Benching of Willis Ward: The Making of a Black Conservatism in the Jim Crow North:_** --- > “” --- **Greg Carr, Chair of Howard University’s Department of Afro-American Studies and author of** **_You Don‘t Call the Kittens Biscuits: Disciplinary Africana Studies and The Study of Malcolm X_** **:** --- > “” --- **Matthew F. Delmont, Professor of History at Dartmouth College and author of the upcoming book** **_Half American: African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad_** **:** --- > “” --- **Ashley Howard, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Iowa, who is writing a book on 1960s urban rebellions in the Midwest:** --- > “” --- [_Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter_](http://time.com/newsletter-history) **Jamila Michener, author of** **_Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism and Unequal Politics_** **and Assistant Professor of Government at Cornell University:** --- > “” --- **Thomas J. Sugrue, author of** **_Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North_** **and Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis and History and Director of the Cities Collaborative at New York University:** --- > “” --- **Philip A. Klinkner, co-author of** **_The Unsteady March: The Rise and Decline of Racial Equality in America_** **, and Professor of Government at Hamilton College:** --- > “” --- ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5846727/george-floyd-protests-history/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5846727/george-floyd-protests-history/"},"headline":"10 Experts on Where the George Floyd Protests Fit Into American History","datePublished":"2020-06-04T20:32:08.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T08:49:56.411Z","description":"Many are looking to history for clues about how to understand the evolving moment. 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