Five years after the murder of George Floyd, a flashpoint for nationwide protests and a movement toward racial equity, has racial justice improved?
On Thursday Scripps News put that question to Marc Morial, President and CEO of the National Urban League.
"I would say that in the five-year period, important, positive steps were made," Morial said. "But now they're threatened. Because the new administration walked in and froze all civil rights investigations. It did not freeze some. It froze all. So now I'm greatly concerned that whatever progress we've made is now being undermined and eroded."
This week, the National Urban League's report "George Floyd Five Years Later" examines how protests over the death of George Floyd in 2020 sparked a new movement toward social justice — and how developments since then now threaten that progress.
It catalogues policing and criminal justice reform, the changing landscape of corporate support for social justice, and new attacks on federal efforts to promote racial equity.
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Morial said he believes America will fight to hold on to the improvements it has made over the last five years.
"What diversity, equity and inclusion is — it's all about the American value proposition of equal opportunity. It's just about everyone having an opportunity — for the job for the scholarship for the promotion, for the business opportunity. And that's a value proposition America has to maintain," he said.
"To the extent that the president and his administration are trying to retrench: There's a coalition of Americans and I think a majority of Americans who are going to push back. Who are going to fight and are going to try to if you will push the nation towards a more equitable future."
Watch the full interview with Morial in the video above.
