The last chapter of Trayvon Martin’s tragically short life started with a famously innocuous chore: a Sunday night convenience store to buy some snacks and drinks.
But a quick trip for treatment on February 26, 2012, ended in a deadly confrontation with a watch out for the neighborhood volunteer who shot and killed a 17-year-old in the street.
While the murder of a black teenager wearing a hoodie is not unheard of a decade ago, the vigilante-style shooting has helped spark a racial calculus that has steadily increased. over the past decade, culminating in Protests against the police define the year 2020.
The echoes of his son’s death caused Tracy Martin, the boy’s father, to live in the Sanford, Florida, closed community where Trayvon was killed by 28-year-old George Zimmerman exactly a decade ago.
Martin told The Daily Beast this week, “It was surreal to see all the dominos fall, and added, ‘People were sick and tired of being pushed aside. But Trayvon’s death struck a nerve and sparked a global movement. It was surprising and emotional.”
America has seen too many black lives lost at the hands of police and police officers in recent years. But in part because of Trayvon’s death, many of those murders were met with national outrage aided by social media campaigns and the powerful Black Matter Movement.
“If I had to do it all over again, I wish my son was here,” Martin said. “But knowing that we cannot undo what happened, all we can do is push and try to come up with some sort of solution. It’s touching to know the fight for Trayvon has changed the game.”
Authorities say that on February 26, 2012, Martin was visiting his father in the suburbs of Orlando when he made a quick trip to a local November 7. As he was walking back from the store, he was spotted by George Zimmerman, a member of the neighborhood police, who eventually shot and killed Trayvon.
Despite the immediate outrage, it took six weeks for Zimmerman to be charged with second-degree murder. The following year, Zimmerman was acquitted of all charges after his lawyers insisted he acted in self-defence.
“We did not get justice for Trayvon. Not a jot. Justice to me is that George Zimmerman is found guilty of murdering Trayvon Martin,” Martin told The Daily Beast.
But the movement that has emerged in tandem with the case has had an undeniable impact, on display in multiple US courtrooms this week alone. On Tuesday, three white men chased and killed 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery Convicted for a hate crime, and now faces the prospect of living in prison. Two days later, three former officers were on the scene when former police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020. was found guilty of violating the man’s civil rights.
For Martin, the success of the cases against the men who murdered Arbery is particularly commendable, given the coincidence between the February 2020 incident and the death of his son. ta. Martin says the end of the case is the biggest signal to him and his family that “real change has happened since Trayvon was killed.”
“It was like a remake of our case, because there were so many similarities,” Martin said. “The cases are a huge victory for the family in particular. They’ve been through a lot and I understand the hurt and pain they go through. Just to see how it all plays out — it feels great to know that justice has been served for that family. ”
Despite such moments and the journey the Black Living Matter movement has gone through over the past decade, Martin said the cause “has a long way to go.”
“A lot of changes need to be made,” he said. “We’re not going to slow down anytime soon.”
