Initial Reaction to the Death of George Floyd: Churches in Rust Belt Cities and Surrounding Areas in Ohio and Western Pennsylvania

The murder of George Floyd was a pivotal moment in this country’s continual fight on racism. As a result, the Black Lives Matter movement initiated a campaign to defund the police. This research project will look at a purposive sample of 10 churches that were selected in Rust Belt cities of Ohio and western Pennsylvania. Transcripts were pulled from YouTube for the sermons from May 31, 2020, through June 21, 2020, for the 10 churches. This project used grounded theory when analyzing the texts in NVivo and the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count softwares to see if the churches selected took a position in any way regarding the Black Lives Matter movement. Results showed that 3 of the 10 churches had sermons that were sympathetic to the Black Lives Matter Movement. The majority of the churches had neutral sermons; however, all churches were similar in usage of keywords (specified below), authenticity, and tone. Future research is necessary to assist law enforcement with community relations and the potential connection between sermon topics and societal issues.