This page breaks the “Say Their Names Collage” into 35 individual stories, starting with Derek Chauvin in the top left corner.
A narrative explanation of the first half of this collage is provided below; to read explanations of the second half of the collage, click here.
Derek Chauvin
Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis, MN police officer who held his knee on the neck of George Floyd until he died on May 25, 2020, is reimagined here carrying a sign that says “To Know Me Is To Love Me, But You Only See My . . ." The now-disgraced Chauvin was found guilty of second degree murder, third degree murder and second degree manslaughter, and he faces 40 years in prison when he is sentenced on June 16, 2021.
2. Ahmaud Arbery and Vanessa Guillen
Ahmaud Arbery, left, was chased and then shot and killed on February 23, 2000 while jogging in Glynn County, Georgia. The men who shot him (pictured below) and called him a racial epithet as he lay dying were arrested 74 days later. They have been charged with murder and false imprisonment. In April 2021, federal hate crime, firearms and kidnapping charges were added.
3. Chadwick Boseman
Actor Chadwick Boseman (1977-2020), the actor who portrayed T’Challa in “Black Panther;” Thurgood Marshall in Marshall; James Brown in “Get on Up;” and Jackie Robinson in “42;” died of cancer on August 28, 2020 at the age of 43.
Above Boseman is an image of Mt. Rushmore National Monument in South Dakota, where the former president held a rally during a pandemic without social distancing on July 4, 2020.
4. Defunding Minneapolis Police Department
Protestors burned down a Minneapolis Police precinct, shown here, in the days following the murder of George Floyde. Officials decided not to rebuild it. The city also committed to reallocating police funding, with mixed results. Follow this link to listen to a broadcast on the city’s effort.
5. Run With Maud
After Amhaud Arbery was killed, the police officers remained on the lam for more than two months. They are seen here (the two jumbo white faces superimposed on the bodies of people who were jogging in the “Run With Maud” tribute). One of Maud’s childhood friends created a website seeking justice for and memorializing him. Check it out here.
6. Peaceful Protesting Took Shantania Love’s Eye
Shantania Love, then 29, was peacefully protesting in Oak Park in Sacramento, Ca. days after George Floyd was killed. A medical assistant, she had her hands up and was chanting, “Hands up, don’t shoot,” when a rubber bullet hit her in the eye, causing tthe mother of two daughters to lose vision in that eye. She’es re-imagined here in the flowing silk gown Issa Rae once wore. Love is one of many people who lost vision during peaceful protests in the summer of 2020 — one of many often forgotten living victims.
7. Daniel Prude’s Life Taken During Mental Health Crisis
Daniel Prude of Rochester, NY was having a mental health crisis on March 23, 2020. Rochester police officers who found him naked placed a plastic spit hood over his head and pressed his face into the wet ground for two minutes and fifteen seconds.
8. Rayshard Brooks
Rayshard Brooks, 27, was killed in the drive-thru of an Atlanta Wendy’s on June 12, 2020, by an Atlanta police officer Garrett Rolfe in the presence of witnesses. After a sobriety test and a calm interaction between Brooks and the police, Brooks, the father of three daughters and a stepson, took and discharged Rolfe’s Taser. Rolfe then shot Brooks twice in the back and said, “I got him.”
9. Superior Jeans
At a newly designated Black Lives Matter Plaza, a white man showed up carrying a sign that read “White Proud and with Superior Jeans,” misspelling the word “Genes.” He is reimagined here hanging from a tree by a noose.
10. Tony McDade
On May 27, 2020, two days after the death of George Floyd, Tony McDade, 38, was shot and killed in Tallahassee, Florida by police shortly after McDade, who used male pronouns, had allegedly stabbed and killed someone else. Click here to read a summary of what happened.
11. Black Lives Matter Plaza
Black Lives Matter Plazas sprang up around the country after Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser commissioned the first one in bright yellow letters 50 feet high to be painted June 5, 2020, on 16th St. at Lafayette Square. Click here to read a USA Today article providing more detail.
12. Spit Hood
One of the seven police officers involved in the death of Daniel Prude in Rochester, NY is re-imagined here modeling a spit hood. He and the other officers involved were suspended (follow this link to see a news broadcast announcing the decision) but a grand jury chose not to criminally charge them. Click here to read an article about that.
13. John Lewis, 1940 -2020
John Lewis was a democratic Congressman serving Maryland. He died on July 17, 2020. A champion of voting rights, he is the subject of the Amazon Prime documentary “Good Trouble." Watch the trailer here. He is depicted here climbing a ladder, to show his ascension from his life on earth, and looking back at what he is leaving behind. Follow this link to his New York Times obituary.
14. Police Officer in Riot Gear Hanging In Tree By Noose
This re-imagined portion of the collage shows a police officer dressed in riot gear hanging from a tree, his neck in a noose, alongside two empty nooses. The purpose of this juxtaposition is to ask viewers to imagine how the country would react if police officers, and not black men, were found hanging this way in the summer of 2020.
15. Suspicious Hanging Suicides
The summer of 2020 also saw the suspicious deaths of between three and five black men hanging from trees in what some thought were suicides and others thought were lynchings. Click here to read a Time magazine article that includes a link to a video of a conversation with a lawyer representing one of the men.
16. Prisoners Behind Bars
The mask-wearing man holds his hand against a window inside a detention facility. He was one of many inmates incarcerated during the pandemic, unable to socially distance due to overcrowding. Ghislaine Maxwell, charged with being an accessory to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking crimes, is prictured under his thumb.
17. Chauvin’s Accomplices
This section of the collage re-imagines Derek Chauvin’s three accomplices: left Thomas Lane, holding a Black Lives Matter Sign; J. Alexander Keung, wearing a pink and yellow suit originally worn by Carson Kressley and waving a Pride fan; and Tou Thao wearing an End Racism t-shirt while taking a knee. To read the remaining vignettes, 18-35, click here.