Racial justice momentum fades in Louisiana
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
/2025/05/22/1747954369643.gif?w=3840)
The America that marched for George Floyd five years ago is gone, buried beneath a backlash that has hardened — for now — into a new political and cultural order, Axios' Delano Massey, Russell Contreras and Zachary Basu write.
Why it matters: Floyd's murder by a Minneapolis police officer shocked the national conscience. But what looked like historic momentum for racial justice has collapsed — eclipsed by a reactionary movement backed by the full force of the U.S. government.
The big picture: While the killings of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery stirred anger and protests in early 2020, it was Floyd's murder five years ago Sunday — captured on camera and seen around the world — that ignited a global uprising.
- Statues toppled. Streets filled. Cities pledged reforms. Fortune 500 companies embraced diversity initiatives.
- For a moment, it felt like transformative change was coming.
Five years later, the pendulum has swung hard in the opposite direction.
- DEI: On his first day in office, President Trump ordered a government-wide purge of DEI programs and offices.
- Civil rights: The Trump administration has moved aggressively to reorient DOJ priorities to focus on "anti-white racism."
- History: Trump ordered a federal review of Confederate monuments toppled during the 2020 protests.
Zoom in: The racial justice backlash has had local ripple effects, too.
- The Justice Department scrapped proposed consent decrees for the Minneapolis and Louisville police departments — and dropped nearly a dozen other investigations into alleged police abuse, including the Louisiana State Police.
- Gov. Jeff Landry banned the teaching of critical race theory in K-12 schools in 2024. Then, LSU complied with federal mandates this year by ending DEI programs and removing more than 1,300 webpages from its site, The Reveille reported.
- The DOJ dropped a decades-old desegregation case against Plaquemines Parish schools, which AG Liz Murrill says is just the first dismissal in a handful of other similar cases she'd like to pursue.
- And last week, state lawmakers advanced a bill to ban DEI practices in state government as well as stop colleges from requiring DEI-related coursework for most majors, the Louisiana Illuminator reported. Rep. Candace Newell called it "the most racially oppressive piece of legislation that I think I've seen."