MINNEAPOLIS — Damarra Atkins remembers vividly what it felt like to watch George Floyd's murder for the first time.
Atkins expected it to be like video from other police killings: brutal but short. As the white officer continued to pin his knee to the neck of a Black man — despite his pleas for breath, despite the crowd's cries to relent — Atkins disconnected. A temporary numbness set in. A sense of urgency followed.
"It just kicked off a whole series of personal exploration and learnings and new things that I had to deal with," said Atkins who is "half Black, half white" and started attending protests hoping "to make my little corner of existence more tangibly helpful."
