He pleaded for help and for the officer to remove his knee from his neck, but these pleas were ignored. George Floyd was soon motionless and found not to have a pulse, and only after paramedics arrived - by which time Floyd was already dead - did then police officer Dereck Chauvin stop kneeling on Floyd's neck. Now the name George Floyd is known internationally. He was a 46-year-old Black American man who was killed on May 25, 2020. Dereck Chauvin, the officer who knelt on his neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, was convicted in the US of murder in the past week.

In May 2020, in the US, an unprecedented season of protests was unleashed. Floyd’s death, as well as the deaths of many others, caused a moment of social reckoning, so to speak in America. In this episode we speak to three Antiguans and Barbudans in the United States who are of different generations, about what they thought of the verdict, racism, and their experience of being black in America.

The host is Kieron Murdoch. The guests are:

1. Stafford Byers, an attorney joining us from New York.
2. Genesis Whitlock, an activist for restorative & climate justice and a student in New Jersey.
3. Curtis Omar Byron, a data scientist at Truist Bank, who is also a violinist and the owner and operator of Wadadli Strings LLC. He joins us from Atlanta, Georgia.

This programme first aired on NewsCo Observer Radio 91.1 FM on April 25th, 2021. Get the latest news from Antigua and Barbuda at the Antigua Observer online.