It has been five years ago since May 25, 2020, when George Floyd craved breath for air underneath the knee of a Minneapolis police officer On the corner of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue. Five years since 17-year-old Darnella Frazier was outside of Cup Foods, raised her phone and raised Bore witness Up to nine minutes and 29 seconds that would sink a global movement against racial injustice.
Frazier’s video did not only show what happened. It said that the world stopped and saw.
Nowadays, that legacy remains in the hands of another community, with different threats, but which uses the same tools. In the United States, Latino organizers increase their phones, not to go viral, but to be registered. They live stream immigration and customs enforcement attacks, film divorces and document protests outside detention centers. Their images are not just content. It is proof, warning and resistance.
Here in Los Angeles where I Learn journalismVarious images have, for example, brought in the public memory. One viral video is displayed A chain father Step into a white, unmarked van while his daughter sobs behind the camera and begs not to sign official documents. He turns around, gesturing for her to calm down and blows her a kiss. In another video, filmed in the city, Los Angeles Police Department officers on horseback Accusation of crowds peaceful demonstrators, winding wooden clubs with hair -raising precision.
In Spokane, Washington, residents form one spontaneous human chain Around their neighbors halfway through, their bodies and cameras that set up a barricade of challenging. A video shows in San Diego White allies shouting “Shame! “While they chase a car full of national guard troops from their neighborhood.
The impact of smartphone witnesses was immediately and unmistakably – visceral street levelseismic In Staatshouses. On the ground, the videos helped a “No kings “movementThose protests organized in all 50 states on June 14, 2025.
Be legislators Intensify their focus Also about immigration policy. While the Trump government escalates enforcement, democratic guided states are Expand laws that limit cooperation With federal agents. On 12 June the Huis Oversight Committee asked for Democratic Governors about these measures, in which Republican legislators quoted concern about public safety. The hearing underlined deep division between federal and national approaches to enforcement of immigration.
Breaking: Ice Raid and Community Resistance for Home Depot in Paramount, California.
– Jeremy Lindenfeld (@Jeremotographs.Bsky.social) 2025-06-07T18: 27: 17,850Z
The legacy of black witness
What unfolds is not new – it is new visible. As my research demonstrates, Latino organizers from a playbook that were sharpened and rooted in a much older descent of black media survival strategies that were forged under extreme oppression.
In my book from 2020 Witness while she is black: Afro -Mamerikans, smartphones and the new protest journalismI document how black Americans have used media – slave – stories, pamphlets, newspapers, radio and now smartphones – to fight for justice. From Frederick Douglass to Ida B. Wells to Darnella Frazier, black witnesses have long used journalism as a tool for survival and transformation.
Latino mobile journalists build on that blueprint in 2025, the filming of state power in moments of over -range, archiving injustice in real time and expanding the impact of this radical tradition.
Their work also reflects the spatial tactics of black resistance. Just like slavishly made black people once mapping escape routes during slavery and Jim Crow, nowadays Latino communities are busy with digital cartography to map ice-free zones, mutual auxiliary hubs and sanctuary spaces. The People about paper card channels the logic of the Black Maroons-Communities of self-satisfied Africans who have escaped plantations to follow patrols, share intelligence and build survival networks. Now the hiding place is digital. The cards are crowdsourced. The danger remains.
Likewise the Stop Ice Raids Alerts Network Revivates a tactic from the civil rights era. In the sixties, organizers Used Wide Area telephone service lines And radio to distribute safety updates. Black DJs dressed shipments in traffic and weather reports – “congestion on the south side” meant police blockades; “Storm alarms” meant violence ahead. Nowadays it is whatsapp medium. The signal is encrypted. But the message – practiced each other – has not changed.
Laminated over both systems is the DNA of the “Nigger motorist Green book“The guide who once helped black travelers navigate Jim Crow America by identifying safe cities, gas stations and shelter. People about papers and stops ice attacks with ice attacks of that inheritance. Where the green book printed pages used, use the contemporary knowledge of digital pens. But the mission remains: the mission.
The People about Papers card is a crowdsourced collection of reports of ice activities in the US.[Screenshot: The Conversation U.S.]Dangerous
Five years after the death of George Floyd, the power of visual evidence remains unmistakable. Black witness laid the foundation. In 2025, that tradition will continue through the lens of Latino mobile journalists, who draw clear parallels between the experiences of their own community and that of black Americans. Their images exposes powerful echoes: ice raids and overloading, border cages and city prisons, a door in the dawn and a knee on a neck.
Just like black Americans for them, Latino communities use smartphones to protect, document and respond. In cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles and El Paso Flitsen “Ice is in The Neighborhood” now about Telegram, WhatsApp and Instagram. For families without papers, the pressure record can mean that retribution or arrest is at risk. But many continue to film – because what is not registered can be deleted.
What they record are not isolated incidents. They are part of a broader, shared fight against state violence. And as long as the cameras keep rolling, the stories keep popping up – relieved by looking away the glow of smartphone screens.
On V. Richardson is an associate professor of journalism at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
This article has been re -published from The conversation Under a Creative Commons license. Read the Original article.
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