COLUMBUS, Ohio — Spectrum News 1 brings you our Voices for Change series, where activists, leaders, and community members share what has brought them to action and how addressing racial discrimination will create a better world for everyone.

For Ohio State senior Jonathan Graham, the meaning of time, and in particular, increments of 10 minutes, are forever changed following the killing of George Floyd.

"Well, the part that hit the deepest for me or hit home for me was the 8 minutes and 46 seconds of silence, which was the amount of time that, um, brother George Floyd had spent on the ground with a man's knee on his neck. And it just resonated with us so deeply because we were forced to sit there and we felt how long it felt. Oftentimes we say, oh, it's just 10 minutes, oh, it's no big, I'll be there in 10. But to think someone who was sitting there for almost nine minutes, knowing that their life was being taken away, knowing that they literally couldn't do anything to save themselves — it's unfathomable to think that someone's life can just be taken away in an instant, without any repercussions."