Justice for African Americans is 150 years too late A protester holds a sign outside a court in Minneapolis, Minnesota, last month, as the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin begins. The death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers last year sparked civil rights protests in the US and across the world 26 April, 2021 00:01 JUSTICE has been done for the family of George Floyd with the conviction of Derek Chauvin. This was described in the US media as historic. What is ironic about the use of the word historic is that more than 150 years after the passing of the 13th Amendment, Lincoln’s Emancipation Declaration and the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement there is a sense of joy, relief and surprise that an African American gets justice. This trial was not only about George Floyd but a whole criminal justice system, a criminal justice system that bears down heavily on the poor and minorities. A dysfunctional policing structure and culture that not that long ago, whose main job was to enforce segregation and a security apparatus again, not that long ago that saw Martin Luther King jnr, Malcolm X, Bobby Searl, Angela Davis and even James Baldwin as a threat to America’s white, entitled, comfortable and Christian middle class.