In pictures: A racial reckoning in America

Updated 9:35 PM ET, Thu July 9, 2020

Protesters march in the street during a demonstration in Minneapolis on June 25.

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Protesters have been rallying across the United States since the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who was killed in police custody in Minneapolis.

Anger poured through communities as video of Floyd's last moments began circulating in May. Floyd was pleading for help as he was pinned down, saying he couldn't breathe.

The incident recalls the 2014 death of Eric Garner, who uttered the words "I can't breathe" while in an officer's chokehold in New York. Since Garner's death, the phrase has become a rallying cry in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Floyd's death has reignited a national conversation about race, police brutality and social injustice. There have been calls to defund the police, and protesters have been tearing down statues of men who once championed or traded in slavery.

The demonstrations have been largely peaceful, but some cities have seen instances of violence, with protesters clashing with police and stores being looted and burned.

In Atlanta, weeks after Floyd's death, protesters set fire to a fast-food restaurant where police fatally shot Rayshard Brooks on June 12. Brooks' shooting led to a police officer being fired and the police chief resigning.

People in New York City paint a Black Lives Matter mural on the street directly outside of Trump Tower on Thursday, July 9.

Mark Lennihan/AP

Artists and volunteers descended on a basketball court in a historically Black neighborhood of Annapolis, Maryland, to paint a 7,000-square-foot mural of Breonna Taylor over the Fourth of July weekend. The project was led by Annapolis-based Future History Now, a nonprofit art collective that creates murals with youth facing adversity in underserved communities. Taylor's death has become another flashpoint in national demonstrations over police brutality. She was killed in March by three Louisville, Kentucky, Metropolitan Police Department officers during the execution of a no-knock warrant.

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Willie Townsend, an employee of the Mississippi State Capitol, raises the state flag for its retirement ceremony on July 1. Gov. Tate Reeves signed a bill to retire the flag — the last state flag to feature the Confederate battle flag. The flag of the Confederacy and its symbols have long divided the country. Critics call the flag a symbol that represents the war to uphold slavery, while supporters call it a sign of Southern pride and heritage.

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A couple draws guns on people who were protesting against St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson on June 28. The demonstration came after Krewson, on a Facebook live video, read the names and addresses of people calling for police reform, according to CNN affiliate KMOV. The man and woman with the guns were identified as Mark and Patricia McCloskey, who owned the private street the protesters were walking on. "The peaceful protesters were not the subject of scorn or disdain by the McCloskeys," their attorney, Albert S. Watkins, said in a statement to CNN. "To the contrary, they were expecting and supportive of the message of the protesters." He said "the actions of violence, destruction of property and acts of threatening aggression by a few individuals" put the McCloskeys "in fear of imminent harm."

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People dance in New York City during a protest to defund the police on June 26.

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A man holds a Black Lives Matter sign as demonstrators block a Boston intersection on June 23.

Brian Snyder/Reuters

Protesters near the White House try to pull down a statue of former President Andrew Jackson on June 22. The statue stands in the middle of Lafayette Square, which has been the site of largely peaceful protests.

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NASCAR drivers, pit crew members and others show their support for Bubba Wallace as they walk alongside his No. 43 car before a Cup Series race in Talladega, Alabama, on June 22. Wallace, the only Black driver in NASCAR's top circuit, has been an outspoken advocate of the Black Lives Matter movement and the corresponding protests against racism and police brutality. A noose was found in his garage stall on Sunday. The FBI investigated and concluded that the noose was a garage-door pull rope that had been in place as early as October 2019 -- well before it had been assigned to Wallace's team.

John Bazemore/AP

Protesters try to enter a gate leading to the BOK Center, where President Donald Trump was holding a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 20. It was the President's first rally since the coronavirus pandemic began.

Amanda Voisard/The Washingt