Athlete and activist Maya Moore owns a unique perspective on the national uprising that’s followed the death of George Floyd. From 2011-2018, Moore played for the Minnesota Lynx and won four WNBA titles; after she and her teammates peacefully protested police violence in 2016, officers walked out of a Lynx game, and the head of the Minneapolis police union criticized the team and belittled the players. And in early 2019, Moore announced she wouldn’t be playing in the upcoming season so she could concentrate on overturning the prison conviction of a family friend, Jonathan Irons, who was handed a 50-year prison sentence in 1998 for burglary and assault with a deadly weapon; Irons was 16 at the time of the crime. Moore is taking a break from the WNBA this season too: though a judge overturned Irons’ conviction in March, he remains in prison as the state of Missouri appeals.
In a conversation with TIME from her home in Atlanta, Moore discussed her experience in Minneapolis, her feelings about the protests that have emerged nationwide, and analyzed the connections between the cases of Irons and Floyd. “Woo, this is heavy,” she says.
(Thi…