Teen who recorded George Floyd’s fatal police encounter to receive PEN Courage award

Darnella Frazier, the teenager who recorded the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, will be honored in December by PEN America, the literary and human rights organization, reports the Associated Press.

Darnella Frazier will be presented the PEN/Benenson Courage Award.

“With nothing more than a cell phone and sheer guts, Darnella changed the course of history in this country, sparking a bold movement demanding an end to systemic anti-Black racism and violence at the hands of police,” PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel said in a statement Tuesday.

17-year-old Frazier will share the Courage Award with Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

“Darnella Frazier took an enormous amount of flak in the wake of releasing the video,” Nossel told The Associated Press.

Her courage

“People were accusing her of being in it for the money, or for being famous, or were asking why she didn’t intervene. And it was just left this way. We wanted to go back and recognize and elevate this singular act.”