Governor Tim Walz is asking Minnesotans for a “moment” of silence today in honor of George Floyd. Starting at 1pm the governor is encouraging Minnesotans to be silent for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. That’s the amount of time former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin and other officers restrained Floyd on the ground before he died. In April, Chauvin was found guilty by a Hennepin County jury of Floyd’s murder. Walz says Floyd’s murder “ignited a global movement and awakened many Minnesotans and people around the world to the systemic racism that our Black communities, Indigenous communities, and communities of color have known for centuries.” Representative Rena Moran is part of the People of Color and Indigenous Caucus at the State Capitol and says it’s been a year that has “transformed how the world sees what we have seen as part of the black community for generations.” Moran says today she will be “reflecting on a black man, a father, a brother, an uncle, someone who was love who lost his life at the hands of someone who should be there to serve and protect.” Former State Senator Jeff Hayden represented the district where Floyd was killed and Hayden’s reflections are featured along with many other prominent Americans in a USA Today piece on Floyd’s death. Hayden says “the death of George Floyd much like a lot of grief that we’ve experienced in our lifetime, never goes away.” And he says “one of the things this country has to do is get out of denial and just understand that unfortunately, this is a really negative part of our nation’s history and if we can just come to grips with that, that’s kind of the first way that you solve anything in life is to just admit you have a problem.”