He Went to Minneapolis and Never Really Left

New York Times

26-05-2025

Joshua Rashaad McFadden remembers sitting with his brothers at his grandmother's house in Rochester, N.Y., in late May of 2020, discussing a video out of Minneapolis.
In the video, a Black man was pinned to the ground by police officers. One officer had a knee on the man's neck.
The man, George Floyd, would soon be dead.
Mr. McFadden, a photographer, got in his car and drove to Minneapolis.
'It was such a snap decision I didn't really pack anything. If I thought too much about it, I don't think I would have gone,' Mr. McFadden said in an interview with Times Insider last week. 'I took my camera. I had to buy clothes when I got there.'
From Rochester, Mr. McFadden drove 1,000 miles through the night to the scenes of unrest and started taking pictures. He quickly picked up photography assignments from news organizations, including The New York Times, and stayed in Minnesota for about 10 days. Then he went home to Rochester.
But he returned to Minneapolis in the fall.
And returned again.
Mr. McFadden estimated that he had made more than half a dozen photography trips to Minneapolis over the last five years, on assignments for The Times and other outlets. He stayed there for weeks at a time, documenting the city's wounds, its grief and its attempts to move forward.
Most recently, in April, Mr. McFadden revisited George Floyd Square, the site of Mr. Floyd's fatal arrest, where members of the community still set up makeshift memorials.
And he is sure he will be back again.
'I will be connected to Minneapolis for the rest of my life,' Mr. McFadden said. 'This is now a part of me.'
Here are five photographs Mr. McFadden took in Minneapolis for The Times.
'You Need to Go That Way'
Mr. McFadden had never been to Minneapolis before May 2020.
'As I drove into the city, I didn't know where anything was,' he said. 'I got into the city and I saw some people on the side of the street. I pulled over, got out of the car and asked them, 'Where has everything happened?' They pointed me in one direction and said, 'You need to go that way.''
The first few days were chaotic. There was arson, and there were clashes with the police. On May 28, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota activated the National Guard and instituted a nighttime curfew.
But there were 'peaceful moments' too, Mr. McFadden said. Protest, prayer, embrace, destruction, all 'kind of happened simultaneously.'
Under Attack
In 2021, Mr. McFadden lived in Minneapolis for several weeks during the federal trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged with murdering Mr. Floyd.
During Mr. Chauvin's trial, Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, was killed by a white police officer during a traffic stop in Brooklyn Center, Minn., a suburb of Minneapolis.
Mr. McFadden covered the ensuing protests outside the police station in Brooklyn Center.
A number of journalists said they had been assaulted by the police at the protest. In an interview with The Times in 2021, Mr. McFadden said that the police had beaten on his car windows with batons before beating his legs and hitting his camera lens. Mr. McFadden, who is Black, also said the officers did not believe his press credentials were real until another journalist vouched for him, which he said had happened to him and other Black journalists before.
A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order forbidding the police to use physical force or chemical agents against journalists.
A Guilty Verdict
On April 20, 2021, the last day of Mr. Chauvin's trial, Mr. McFadden was taking pictures outside the courthouse when the jury announced a guilty verdict. 'I think people expected him to be found innocent,' he said. 'I remember when they announced 'guilty,' people were shocked,' he added.
Mr. McFadden later went to George Floyd Square, where crowds had gathered often over the previous 11 months. By then, it was a familiar place.
A Memorial that Breathes
The square, near the intersection of 38th Street East and Chicago Avenue in the Powderhorn neighborhood of the city, was a kinetic memorial where new pieces of public art were always popping up.
There, in April 2021, Mr. McFadden encountered Nik Malcolm and his son Cameron. They were posing in an empty frame someone had installed in front of a mural of Mr. Floyd.
Mr. Malcolm said his son had kept asking him what had happened to George Floyd. So they decided to take a road trip from their home in Montgomery, Ala., to Minneapolis and visit the square, over 1,000 miles away.
It sounded similar to the decision Mr. McFadden had made a year earlier.
Five Years Later
Mr. McFadden returned to Minneapolis this April to make photographs for a Times article about George Floyd Square, and the five years that have passed since Mr. Floyd's death.
People told him that little had changed.
'From what I see, people are still upset — there is still tension in the space,' he said. 'And a deep, deep sadness.'