Was the George Floyd statue removed from the National Mall in Washington in February 2025? No, that's not true: The National Park Service told Lead Stories that it had never erected a statue of Floyd on the National Mall. The image of the Floyd statue used in the social media post shows the statue in Newark, New Jersey.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Threads on February 6, 2025. It said:
Controversial George Floyd Statue Removed from National Park - 'It Never Belonged Here', Officials Say
This is what the post looked like on Threads at the time of writing:
(Source: Threads screenshot taken on Fri February 7 19:20:21 2025 UTC)
A spokesperson for the National Park Service told Lead Stories via email on February 7, 2025, that they "never erected a statue of George Floyd on the National Mall."
A statue of Floyd is not included in the list of statues and memorials at the National Mall, as the National Park Service website (archived here) shows. The House of Representatives website (archived here) lists all the memorials at the National Mall and Memorial Parks, and one dedicated to Floyd is not included, as this screenshot shows:
(Source: House.gov website screenshot taken on Fri February 7 19:25:43 2025 UTC)
A reverse image search on Google Lens returned images from a George Floyd statue that was erected outside City Hall in Newark in 2022, as the below screenshot shows:
(Source: Google screenshot taken on Fri February 7 22:39:11 2025 UTC)
A search of keywords "George Floyd statue newark new jersey" (archived here) found an Instagram post by Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka on May 25, 2022, with the caption:
The family of George Floyd visited Newark, NJ, today to see the statue that was placed in front of City Hall in his honor.
Today marks the second anniversary of George Floyd's death, which set off nationwide protests against police brutality and racism.
The image of Floyd is the fifth in a gallery of photos in the post and is the same one as in the post on Threads, as this screenshot shows:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Fri February 7 19:37:22 2025 UTC)
News of the statue being unveiled was covered by Pix 11 News in an article (archived here) published on June 16, 2021, and by CBS Philadelphia.
At the time this was written, Reuters had reviewed this claim.
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Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims regarding George Floyd can be found here.
