Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, parents of Trayvon Martin, have posted a petition on change.org. In pertinent part, it requests;
“We’re calling on 21 governors whose states have some form of ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws to review those laws and amend them so that people who instigate conflicts — people like George Zimmerman — won’t be able to use these laws to get away with murder.”
“We want to say thank you to all of you who have stood up for our son. Because of all of your efforts, Trayvon’s life is celebrated all over the world. Please continue to stand with us as we fight to ensure that his legacy is to leave behind a safer and more peaceful world for all our sons and daughters.”
32,744 more signatures are needed. Please sign, tweet, email, and spread the word.
http://www.change.org/petitions/change-for-trayvon-stand-your-ground-laws-must-be-reviewed
George Zimmerman: Stand your ground will get committee hearing this fall
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/trayvon-martin/os-trayvon-martin-stand-your-ground-20130803,0,4451621.story
TAMPA — State House Speaker Will Weatherford says he’ll ask a House committee to hold a hearing this fall on the state’s controversial Stand Your Ground law.
The law has been heavily criticized since the July 13 not-guilty verdict in Seminole County for Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who claimed self-defense in the fatal shooing of unarmed, black Miami Gardens teen Trayvon Martin in Sanford in February 2012.
Weatherford’s announcement, made in an opinion column published in The Tampa Tribune on Friday, is the first concrete move by the Republican majority in the Legislature toward considering changing the law, which has generated protests in the state’s Capitol and calls from some Democrats for a special session of the Legislature to modify or repeal it.
The law also has drawn criticism of Florida among gun-control and civil-rights advocates nationwide, but Republicans and gun rights advocates have stanuchly defended it.
Weatherford, whose position as speaker makes him the most powerful member of the state House, said he’ll ask Criminal Justice Subcommittee Chairman Matt Gaetz of Fort Walton Beach to hold a hearing on the law this fall.
Invisible Women: The Consequences of Forgetting Sybrina Fulton
http://www.thenation.com/blog/175556/invisible-women-consequences-forgetting-sybrina-fulton#axzz2axwRje2u
Sybrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin, has been a textbook example of courage in the seventeen months since her youngest son was killed by George Zimmerman. Thrust into the public sphere during a time of great personal tragedy, Fulton has carried her pain with incredible poise. It was no different when she spoke before the National Urban League in Philadelphia this past Friday. She told the audience: “My message to you is please use my story, please use my tragedy, please use my broken heart to say to yourself, ’We cannot let this happen to anybody else’s child.’ ”
In that moment, she made the connection between herself and Mamie Till, mother of Emmett Till, the teen slain in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a woman, even stronger. Speaking on her decision to have an open casket at his funeral after her son’s face had been so badly beaten and disfigured he was unrecognizable, Mamie said: “I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby.” These mothers of black sons publicly asked us to use their pain to seek justice. However, the way we use that pain cannot diminish the reality of the people who live with it. By which I mean, we have a bad habit of acting as if black women exist only as props in the story about black men and it’s time to stop.
Black women’s pain fuels but then becomes obscured in the popular narrative about the consequences of racism and the fight for racial justice, as it becomes framed through the experiences of black men. All of us who do work around these issues are guilty of this oversight, myself included. In our attempts to address the problem of anti-black racism in the US, we neglect to consider the experiences of black women as part of that story.
Trayvon Martin’s mom still uneasy about international attention
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/trayvon-martin/os-trayvon-martin-parents-black-journalists-20130803,0,1199780.story
Trayvon Martin’s parents continued their quest for justice for their slain son during an appearance in Central Florida today.
Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin spoke this morning at the National Association of Black Journalists Convention at the Gaylord Palms Resort in Kissimmee.
At one point, Fulton told a room filled of reporters she remains unsettled about the intense attention in the case and the behavior of some reporters.
“It’s very difficult for us when you run up to us. It’s invasive. It feels a little strange. We’re just humans. It might be a story, It might be a good story. But this is our lives.”
Fulton and Martin, along with three family attorneys, renewed their call to repeal stand-your-ground laws, a common theme in the numerous appearances they’ve made across the country amid controversy following the July 13 not-guilty verdict in George Zimmerman’s murder trial in Sanford.
Trayvon Martin’s parents meet with federal authorities in Miami
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/01/3536816/trayvon-martins-parents-meet-with.html
The parents of Trayvon Martin and their lawyer met with Justice Department prosecutors and FBI agents at the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami Wednesday to discuss the status of a criminal civil-rights investigation into the fatal shooting of their teen-age son last year.
The federal investigation, which was opened while George Zimmerman faced prosecution for the death of the 17-year-old, gained renewed interest last month after Zimmerman was acquitted in state court of Martin’s killing in a Sanford gated community.
Prosecutors with the Justice Department’s criminal civil-rights section and FBI agents from Central Florida met with the late teen’s parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, and their attorney, Benjamin Crump, to bring the family up to speed, according to sources familiar with the meeting.
The meeting was held in Miami to accommodate the parents. Trayvon had lived with his mother in Miami Gardens before his death, which occurred while he was visiting his father in Sanford.
A spokeswoman for the Miami U.S. attorney’s office confirmed the meeting took place there Wednesday, but she could not say who was present. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Tampa referred a reporter’s call to the Justice Department, which declined to comment because of the “ongoing” investigation.
If the Justice Department were to pursue criminal civil-rights charges against Zimmerman, the case would be filed in the Middle District of Florida, which includes Sanford, north of Orlando.
Sybrina & Tracy Martin Press conference
http://www.wftv.com/s/watchlive/
Trayvon Martin’s parents are pushing for a Trayvon Martin Amendment to Stand Your Ground laws to prohibit initial aggressors from claiming SYG defense.
The Martins are focused on creating a legacy for Trayvon of positive change.
Trayvon Martin’s parents haven’t made a decision about a civil suit yet.
Smithsonian director wants Trayvon Martin’s hoodie
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/31/smithsonian-director-wants-trayvon-martins-hoodie/
Trayvon Martin’s hoodie became a nationwide symbol following his fatal shooting, and now the director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History wants the original.
The museum’s director, Lonnie Bunch, said Mr. Martin’s hoodie, the one he was wearing the night of his death on Feb. 26, 2012, represents a unique opportunity to further the discussion about race in America, The Washington Post reported.
“It became the symbolic way to talk the Trayvon Martin case. It’s rare that you get one artifact that really becomes the symbol,” he said. “Because it’s such a symbol, it would allow you to talk about race in the age of Obama.”
Mr. Bunch said he would be very interested in obtaining the hoodie for his collection after the Justice Department finishes its civil rights investigation. He also has his eye on the hoodie that Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, wore in solidarity with protesters, The Post reported.
The National Museum of African American History and Culture is set to open in 2015 and will display objects related to the Civil Rights Movement, such as the handcuffs used to restrain Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.
I’m spreading the link far and wide!
@yahtc
@cielo62
Thank you. We can do this. Yes, we can!
Thanks for posting this, Xena.
I just signed.
Xena- signed it, put on Facebook and emailed it.
FROM THE CLUTTERED DESK OF Cielo62