Fact Check-No George Floyd statue ever erected at National Mall, contrary to claims

By Reuters Fact Check

There has never been a statue of George Floyd at the National Mall in Washington, contrary to a false claim online that a monument was removed in January by way of an order from the new U.S. president.

Floyd, a Black American man, was killed at the hands of a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, in May 2020. Chauvin is serving concurrent sentences in prison: one for violating Floyd’s civil rights and another for Floyd’s murder.

Facebook posts from January 26 said: “George Floyd Statue has been removed from the National Mall. #MAGAWINNING.”

Comments under the posts include: “Thank you President Trump,” and “Our country is winning.”

Some posts included a close-up picture of a Floyd bust.

The National Mall in Washington is a park spanning between the U.S. Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial. It is home to memorials and sculptures dedicated to U.S. presidents, military veterans and other historical figures.

There has never been an official statue of Floyd at the National Mall, as of the time of writing in February 2025.

The National Parks Service said to Reuters that it did not erect any such sculpture at the National Mall.

An art installation resembling a cage, which the creators said was in part a contextualizing of police killings of Black Americans, was displayed at the National Mall for a brief time in 2020.

Visitors who stepped inside were encouraged to hold their breath for as long as possible, while listening to segments of music lasting the minutes that Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck, according to a local report. The medical examiner in 2020 said Floyd died from a loss of blood flow due to compression on his neck.

The installation was displayed at the Mall until September 2020.

Reuters found no credible reporting, however, that a statue of Floyd himself was ever placed at the U.S. landmark, therefore no credible reports on orders for a statue to be dismantled.

The photograph of a Floyd sculpture shared in some of the social media posts is the one found in New Jersey. This monument was unveiled outside City Hall in Newark in 2021.

The false narrative first surfaced on the website Dunning-Kruger Times. The website’s about page says it is a “subsidiary of the ‘America’s Last Line of Defense’ network of parody, satire and tomfoolery.”

Christopher Blair, who owns and operates the America’s Last Line of Defense network and website said in an email, “America's Last Line of Defense and the Dunning-Kruger Times publish clearly labeled fiction with the intention of exposing the gullibility of the American right-wing cultist.”

The White House and the National Mall Trust did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

VERDICT

False. There was no George Floyd statue erected at the National Mall, therefore no statue to be dismantled. The claim first appeared on a website that says it publishes satirical content.

This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work.