George Floyd and the Shot Heard Round the World

When I was in middle school, my history teacher taught my class about “the shot heard round the world”: the first gunshot fired by a soldier at the Battle of Lexington and Concord on April 18, 1775. This marked the beginning of the American Revolutionary War, a rebellion that would inspire other nations for decades to come. As a child, I was fascinated by this idea that the entire world could feel the impact of a single person’s actions. Eventually, I would come to learn that this was not the only time that the world had come to a halt — nor would it be the last.

At least once in our lifetimes, we all hear another shot — a tragedy that stops the world. In that moment, time freezes. For my father, it was the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. For my mother, it was the murder of John Lennon. For me, it was the murder of George Floyd.

In the summer of 2020, George Floyd was everywhere: my Instagram timeline, my Twitter feed, my television screen. Everywhere I looked I was reminded that, much like Eric Garner, a police officer choked George Floyd until he could no longer breathe — all because his Blackness was seen as a weapon.

We live in a world where Black people have to hold their breath and fear for their lives when they spot flashing lights of red and blue in their rearview mirror. A world where a police officer gets to decide whether a Black man deserves to breathe. While George Floyd was not the first Black man to die while in police custody, his death prompted more public outrage than I had ever seen. Protesters took to the streets demanding that justice be served and change be made. I watched the world stop as it cried for George Floyd, recognizing a reality that I had known for years: our country was flawed and our system was broken.

The murder of George Floyd was a wakeup call to the American public and my generation. A magnifying glass that exposed the cracks in our system to the untrained eye. But these issues are not new. We were not the first generation to take to the streets to fight back against this unjust system. Nor were we the first generation to look at the world around us and shudder at the horrors we saw. This fight began years ago, with our mothers and our fathers. With our aunts and uncles. With our grandparents and our great-grandparents. My own family’s fight trails all the way back to my great-great-uncle and aunt who marched alongside Dr. King and other Civil Rights leaders in the March on Washington and the Selma to Montgomery March.

Yet, here we are, decades later, facing the same problems they faced, fighting the same fights they fought, and marching the same streets they marched.

The sound of a gunshot can last three to five milliseconds, and, for a single moment in time, that shot can be heard around the world. While the entire world stops in that moment — stunned silent and recoiling from the impact — it does not take very long for a state of normalcy to return and for everything to be set back into motion. Life goes on for those who do not have to worry about a similar fate. They return to their daily lives until they hear the next shot, moving on without healing the country’s previous wound.

As we take time this month to celebrate the beauties of what it means to be Black in America and all of the rich history that comes along with it, we mourn all of the Black lives lost simply because of the melanin that enriches their skin. And so, as we smile, laugh, and cry, we will also wait. Wait for the other shoe to drop. For the next life to be lost. For the next trial to begin. For the next sentencing to occur. For the next shot to be heard around the world.

Nicole B. Alexander ’24, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a Social Studies concentrator in Kirkland House.

This piece is a part of a focus on Black authors and experiences for Black History Month.