From Ferguson to Minneapolis, AP reporters recall flashpoints of the Black Lives Matter movement

WASHINGTON — On May 28, 2020, Associated Press photographer Julio Cortez got a call asking him to head to Minneapolis from the East Coast. What he saw on the ground was unlike any protest he’d ever covered. It was then that he knew something had shifted in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Cortez is one of three AP staff members featured in this episode of The Story Behind the AP Story, a recurring audio production that features extended interviews with AP journalists discussing their stories and process.

This episode includes two journalists on the scene in Minneapolis, Cortez and AP reporter Steve Karnowski. And AP race and ethnicity editor Aaron Morrison provides analysis of the coverage and looks into the reckoning on race in America.

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EDITOR’S NOTE — Over the next few weeks, The Associated Press will publish a series of stories exploring the impact, legacy and ripples of what is widely called the “Ferguson uprising” that sparked nationwide outcries over police violence and calls for broader solutions to entrenched racial injustices. The series provides a sprawling look at racial justice in American life, from stories about how the uprising changed the U.S. Department of Justice and how corporations sought to boost their profiles by donating to the movement, to examinations of a reckoning on race in schools, churches, politics, sports and public health.