Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa are reporters for The Washington Post and co-authors of the new book His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice.

“Looking at George Floyd's family history, looking at the poverty that he grew up in, looking at the schools that he attended, which were segregated, looking at the opportunities that were denied to him and the struggles he had in the criminal justice system—it's an extraordinary American experience, in part because it's so outside of the norm of what we think of when we think of the American dream…. And so we wanted to be able to showcase that that kind of extraordinary American experience is ordinary for so many people.”

Show notes:

• @newsbysamuels
• @ToluseO
• Samuels’s Washington Post archive
• Olorunnipa’s Washington Post archive
• 00:00 His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice (Viking • 2022)
• 03:00 "Covid-19 Is Ravaging Black Communities. A Milwaukee Neighborhood Is Figuring Out How to Fight Back." (Robert Samuels • Washington Post • Apr 2020)
• 04:00 "Stumbling Toward Wokeness" (Robert Samuels • Washington Post • Jul 2020)
• 05:00 "George Floyd’s America" (Washington Post Staff • Washington Post • Oct 2020)

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