Ben Crump’s quest to raise the value of Black life in America

Ben Crump is on the phone.

No. Ben Crump, 51, is on the phone—while also reading email, looking at texts and intermittently contributing to a hushed conversation happening in the room above the sanctuary at Minneapolis’ Greater Friendship Missionary Baptist Church. In the center of the room, men in dark suits and, in most cases, face masks with references to George Floyd, stand in a tight cluster: Floyd’s younger brother Philonise Floyd; the Rev. Al Sharpton; Crump’s white co-counsel, the Chicago-based lawyer Antonio “Tony” Romanucci. It’s a makeshift war room where, instead of a tabletop map and a wreath of smoke, there’s a collection of djembe drums and a cross above the door.

It’s the night before the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former police officer charged with killing Floyd. And the church, a five-minute drive from where Floyd died, is hosting a prayer vigil for the Floyd family, which is about to experience a trial of its own. In the courtroom, the video of Floyd’s final moments will be played again and again; defense attorneys will emphasize the substances in Floyd’s system when he died; stereotypes about Black men will be aired. As Crump tells the men, everyone and everything in the vicinity of where Floyd died will be blamed—except Chauvin. George Floyd and the eyewitnesses to his death will be called “everything but a child of God,” Crump says.

The reason: the unwavering math of American justice. To acquit, Chauvin’s defense needs just one juror’s doubt.

With the trial long over and Chauvin’s sentencing slated for June 25, it may be difficult to remember the unlikelihood of the eventual outcome—Chauvin becoming Minnesota’s first white police officer convicted of murder for killing a Black person while on duty. Yes, this was the case with up-close and gruesome video of the crime, from the beginning to the brutal end, and several eyewitnesses. But those elements have been there before, and American juries have opted not to convict or hand out lengthy prison terms. That’s why Ben Crump is here.

Many Americans first encountered Crump as the lawyer, adviser and