George Floyd hologram lights up over Robert E. Lee statue in Virginia
A hologram showing George Floyd was projected in front of a Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, Virginia on Tuesday night. A large crowd, including members of Floyd's family, gathered at the unveiling of the temporary memorial.
The three-dimensional projection shows a flurry of lights banding together to display Floyd's face and his name over the Confederate statue. His family members went to the inaugural event held by the George Floyd Hologram Memorial Project — a partnership between the George Floyd Foundation and Change.org.
"My older brother, George Floyd. Wonderful man. Beautiful human being, kind spirit, loving," Rodney Floyd said Tuesday. "If he could see this in the physical form with us, I promise he would give all of y'all hugs."
The George Floyd Hologram Memorial Project aims to "transform spaces that were formerly occupied by racist symbols of America's dark Confederate past into a message of hope, solidarity and forward-thinking change," according to the news release.
In the coming days, the hologram will also appear where former Confederate statues stood in Georgia, North Carolina and more, mirroring the route of the 1961 Freedom Rides, as a "symbolic call to continue the fight for racial justice," the news release said.
The image was designed by Kaleida Hologram Co. and projected by Quince Imaging of Virginia.
"We going to put our foot on the pedal and we're going to take care of business because if we stop now we'll never get finished," Floyd's brother, Philonise Floyd, said Tuesday.
The tribute in front of the Robert E. Lee statue comes over a month since Virginia Governor Ralph Northam was blocked from removing the memorial altogether in early June.
