Statues Reflecting on Racial Injustice Go Up in Union Square

Sculptures of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and John Lewis are on display in a Manhattan park known as a site of protests. “These monuments have meaning,” Mr. Floyd’s brother said.

In Union Square on Friday night, Terrence Floyd — a brother of George Floyd, whose murder in May 2020 by a police officer prompted confrontations over police brutality and racial injustice — spoke softly into a microphone.

“These monuments have meaning,” Mr. Floyd said as he stood among large sculptures of his brother, Representative John Lewis, and Breonna Taylor.

The statues were covered in black cloth, and the growing crowd of people held cellphone cameras, ready to capture the moment when Mr. Floyd and others revealed the sculptures, which are nearly six feet tall and made of 200 layers of African mahogany plywood coated in bronze metallic paint.