Rest in Power

by Sybrina Fulton

  I was still working, although I would never return to my good county job that I loved at the Miami-Dade Housing Agency. Now, I was in the Justice for Trayvon movement full-time, 24/7.

  CHAPTER 10

  Tracy

  March 27, 2012–July 6, 2012

  After the rallies and speeches were over, things started happening. A series of damning dominoes began falling for the man who shot our son.

  MARCH 27

  The Justice for Trayvon movement moved on to Washington, D.C., where on Capitol Hill we addressed the issue of racial profiling with the House Judiciary Committee.

  Before we even went into the chamber, we met with Congresswomen Eleanor Holmes Norton, Sheila Jackson Lee, Frederica Wilson, Maxine Waters, and others to discuss how important our message would be to begin the movement to better protect and value the lives of our nation’s young people of color.

  Then we walked inside. The chamber was packed. There were important figures from civil rights history in the room, including, right in the front row, former Little Rock Nine member Ernest Gideon Green, who made history in 1957 by integrating Little Rock Central High School. But more important, maybe, were the young people. A line of teenagers lined up outside the hearing room, hoping to get a spot inside for the hearing. I was starting to believe that Trayvon had inspired his peers to find their place in our long history of activism. I could sense that this generation was ready to take its stand—to fight for their own rights.

  There were many speakers: me, Sybrina, Crump, Congresswoman Corrine Brown, even House Speaker John Boehner, who called the shooting of our son a “tragedy.”

  But the person who might have had the biggest impact spoke the following day: Bobby Rush, then sixty-five, a senior Democratic congressman representing Illinois’s First District. Apparently, he was so moved by our story that he wore a gray hoodie beneath his pin-striped suit jacket into the Congressional Chamber. The presiding speaker, Gregg Harper, a Republican from Mississippi’s Third District, gave Rush the floor.

  He began speaking, and shortly into his remarks, he removed his suit jacket, revealing the sweatshirt and pulling its hood over his head while continuing his speech.

  “Racial profiling has to stop, Mr. Speaker,” he continued. “Just because someone wears a hoodie does not make them a hoodlum.”

  Now he replaced his eyeglasses with a pair of sunglasses.

  As he began reading from the Bible, reminding us that the Lord requires us to do justly, love mercifully, and walk humbly with your God, Speaker Harper began pounding his gavel, calling on Rush to stop speaking. But Bobby Rush raised his voice higher, and moved on to another passage as he hung his jacket on the podium—while Harper banged his gavel incessantly, louder and louder, demanding for Rush to stop speaking.

  “May God bless Trayvon Martin’s soul, his family, and…” Rush’s words trailed off as the microphone at the podium was disconnected and he was escorted out of the room, calling for justice until he was on the other side of the House doors.

  Harper requested that the sergeant at arms “enforce the prohibition on decorum,” reminding House members of a rule that prohibited them from wearing hats in the chamber—although a hoodie is not a hat. “The chair finds the donning of a hood is not consistent with this rule,” he said. “Members need to remove their hoods or leave the floor.”

  We reached out to Bobby Rush and gave him a big thanks.

  MARCH 31

  Another big rally in Sanford, this one beginning in Goldsboro, the African American community in Sanford. A thousand people were led through the historic streets by Reverend Al Sharpton, Reverend Jesse Jackson, and NAACP president Benjamin Jealous. More people lined the sidewalks and watched from porches and balconies as the demonstration marched through the neighborhood to the front of the Sanford Police Department, where an NAACP meeting would be held.

  In these early rallies, and the larger ones that followed, we felt our best chance for justice was peaceful demonstration, as opposed to violence, even though we personally felt as much anger as the people in Ferguson, Missouri, did, where the police killing of Michael Brown, in August 2014, would turn into violence that raged for days and nights. We had to think strategically. We were being advised by veterans of the civil rights movement as well as the new activists. What good would it have done to tear up our own neighborhood? Whether it’s Miami Gardens outside Miami or the African American community of Goldsboro in Sanford? It wasn’t about people over property—we didn’t just care about depreciating the value of where we lived, we were concerned with no one else being killed.

  Others saw things differently. People wanted to get involved but didn’t know how, didn’t know what to do. People were doing things that we couldn’t control: like putting a $10,000 bounty “for the capture” of the killer. We prayed that things didn’t explode, which, we knew, could happen slowly—and then quickly. It could be something as simple as burning a garbage can. And then someone else throws that garbage can through a store window. And the spark lights the fire and burns the neighborhood down, leaving—what?—ashes, more rage, and no progress.

  People were ready to burn, loot, destroy. I understood the anger myself, but I had my own brushes with anger and the damage it can cause earlier in my life and had always taught Tray and my other kids to find better ways to deal with conflict, with rage, even when it’s justifiable rage. It would be hypocritical to promote violence now, in my son’s name. If we promoted that, what would it do? We weren’t here to express our rage and then go home; we were trying to seek justice.

  As Sybrina would later say, “We know that Trayvon won’t be able to rest in peace until there is peace.” If we held our heads and our mission high, we felt sure that justice would prevail.

  When the rally arrived at the Sanford police station on March 31, the crowd gathered around a temporary stage set up by the NAACP with their seal on either side, a podium in the middle, and a huge picture of Trayvon in his hoodie as a backdrop.

  Benjamin Jealous spoke and so did Reverend Jackson. By the time they were done, with their rousing remarks, the crowd had reached a fever pitch, chanting and cheering, crowding closer to the stage. Now a member of the NAACP introduced Reverend Sharpton. As he listed Sharpton’s past achievements, the crowd began shouting, “Bring him on! Bring him on!”

  Reverend Sharpton took the stage, absorbing the applause, and before it completely died down, he spoke into the microphone. “No justice!” he said.

  And the crowd roared back, “No peace!”

  “No justice,” said the reverend.

  “No peace!”

  “What do we want?” he asked.

  “Justice!”

  “When do we want it?”

  “Now!”

  “I am,” Reverend Sharpton said to end his electric entrance.

  “Trayvon!” responded the crowd.

  “I am!”

  “Trayvon!”

  “I am!”

  “Trayvon!”

  “I am!”

  “Trayvon!”

  “All right,” Sharpton said as he quieted the crowd and began his speech, another passionate exhortation for justice. He finished it with these words:

  We are living in the middle of an American paradox. We’ve made great progress, and at the same time in some areas we haven’t moved at all. The American paradox, that we can put a black man in the White House but we can’t walk a black child through a gated neighborhood….We are not selling out, bowing out or backing down until there is justice for Trayvon Martin.

  APRIL 6

  Enter the Dream Defenders, a group of forty activists, including college students, graduates, and organizers, banded together by Umi Selah (formerly Phillip Agnew), a twenty-seven-year-old former pharmaceutical salesman from Chicago, now living in Miami. Selah was so moved by our story that he quit his job and created the group, named for their mission to defend the “dream” of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Most were from Florida colleges, but othe
rs came from as far away as Atlanta to participate in a march “against racial profiling, institutional racism, and the legacy of violence,” according to the group’s leaders.

  The group marched for three days and forty miles, from Daytona Beach to Sanford. What made the march so beautiful to me, was that the young people were going beyond just demanding justice for Trayvon and for an arrest. They were also using this moment to move civil rights forward and maintain the energy and enthusiasm surrounding Trayvon’s death to create long-lasting change. I once again felt my son’s presence in these people, proud that even though he was gone and would never be able to go to college or become an activist, his spirit lived on in the actions of young people.

  On the march’s final day the Dream Defenders entered the city of Sanford, led by two students holding a banner that read “We Are Trayvon Martin.” They knelt in front of the Sanford police station, blocking its doors, and preventing people from entering or exiting.

  The next morning the Sanford Police Department was shut down, closing its doors to the public for the day. The Dream Defenders had shut down the Sanford police station! They remained kneeling in front of the building, praying for Trayvon and our family, praying for justice, praying for this country. They also met with city leaders, hoping their voices were heard but knowing either way they would keep fighting for what’s right, in the hope that, as the Defenders’ leader, Umi Selah, said, their struggle would awaken the country.

  APRIL 10

  The strangest thing yet: the killer had disappeared.

  At least from his attorneys, who held a surreal press conference in front of the Seminole County Courthouse in Sanford. The attorneys, Craig Sonner and Hal Uhrig, announced they would be withdrawing as his legal counsel. Their reason? They had lost control of and contact with their client.

  They could not find him.

  Although they had never met him in person, they had been communicating with him daily via phone and email. Now they had lost track of him and hadn’t been able to reach him for two days, although they seemed certain he was still in the United States.

  Meanwhile, the killer made an off-the-record phone call to Fox News commentator Sean Hannity and even tried to contact special prosecutor Angela Corey. But the attorney said that she had refused to speak with him without counsel.

  The killer had even set up his own website called The Real George Zimmerman, where he was collecting money and communicating electronically with supporters.

  “As a result of the incident and subsequent media coverage, I have been forced to leave my home, my school, my employer, my family and ultimately, my entire life,” he wrote on his website. “This website’s sole purpose is to ensure my supporters they are receiving my full attention without any intermediaries.”

  He was asking for people to take care of him, and people crawled out of the woodwork to actually do it! I was sickened by it.

  The news of his disappearance was surprising. We knew he had been in hiding, and we would later learn that he was wearing a bulletproof vest, but we had been under the impression he was still in Florida. When his attorneys further announced that he had likely left the state, we became concerned that he had become a flight risk. Crump issued a statement on our behalf. Some experts wondered if these developments would force Angela Corey’s hand in issuing a warrant for his arrest sooner than she would have liked.

  But as far as the state was concerned, this was a nonissue. The fact remained that until there was a warrant he was free to go wherever he wanted.

  APRIL 11

  The biggest and most important domino dropped thus far.

  We were in Washington at Reverend Sharpton’s National Action Network’s annual convention, with Pastor Jamal Bryant, Reverend Sharpton, and our attorneys Parks and Crump. The conference room was filled with representatives from the NAACP and the Urban League, all working on strategies for our case, when word came that Angela Corey was going to hold a press conference.

  It had been forty-five agonizing and crazy-busy days since our son’s shooting. Before going on television for the press conference, Angela Corey had called Ben Crump and said something to this effect: she and her team had met and believed they had enough evidence to charge and arrest the killer, whose story, they came to believe, didn’t add up. The charges would reflect the state attorney’s belief that the killer had, for all intents and purposes, stalked Trayvon before he shot him. Just as we’d felt all along.

  Then she called me. My heart was pounding uncontrollably from all the tension of the moment, and I barely heard anything she said until she got to these words: “We are charging him for the death of Trayvon.”

  She then spoke to Sybrina, and when they were done, a small group met in a side room in front of a television and waited for the press conference to begin.

  Finally, there she was, wearing a red jacket and standing between two American flags on a stage in Sanford, members of the police department and her legal team beside her.

  “Just moments ago, we spoke by phone with Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin,” she began. “It was less than three weeks ago that we told those sweet parents that we would get answers to all their questions, no matter where our quest for the truth led us. And it is the search for justice for Trayvon that has brought us to this moment. The team here with me has worked tirelessly, looking for answers in Trayvon Martin’s death.”

  She introduced the prosecutors, John Guy and Bernie de la Rionda, and gave some acknowledgments to those who had assisted in the investigation. She said they didn’t take anything in the case—or the arrest—lightly, and offered some details of their investigation. She said that they were trying to seal out the public clamor around the case; she and her office’s mission was to seek the truth.

  “Today, we filed an information charging George Zimmerman with murder in the second degree,” she said. “A capias has been issued for his arrest. With the filing of that information and the issuance of a capias, he will have the right to appear in front of a magistrate in Seminole County within twenty-four hours of his arrest, and thus formal prosecution will begin.

  “We thank all of those people across this country who have sent positive energy and prayers our way. We ask you to continue to pray for Trayvon’s family as well as for our prosecution team. I want to especially thank Mr. Crump and Mr. Parks, who have stayed in touch daily with us on behalf of our victim’s family. Remember it is Trayvon’s family that are our constitutional victims and who have the right to know the critical stages of these proceedings.” Corey then confirmed that the killer had already turned himself in.

  It felt like the weight of the world had been lifted from us.

  We thanked God. We prayed. This was what we had been waiting forty-five days to happen. All the long hours of traveling, all the time away from our families, all the strain of watching Trayvon criticized by strangers, all of that had brought us here. Our voices, voices they had tried to silence through inaction, were being heard. Our son might yet rest in peace.

  After Angela Corey finished speaking at the press conference, I turned to Sybrina. Tears were running down both of our faces.

  “I told you we were going to get justice,” I said.

  I can’t say I always believed this would happen, because in the beginning it didn’t look like it would. But we kept our faith and had been waiting for this moment. We knew this wasn’t the end, but just another beginning. There was still much more work to do.

  But we finally had a chance at justice.

  At last, we had proof that our belief in the American system of justice was justified.

  Sybrina was overcome with emotion, immediately reverting from activist to mother in mourning, and she cried and cried, with grief and gratitude, and finally relief. We would have our day in court.

  I took Sybrina’s hand.

  She took Jahvaris’s hand.

  And we silently took Trayvon’s hand.

  “We’re going to get justice,” I said. “We’re
going to get justice for Trayvon.”

  —

  The killer had turned himself in to the state police in Jacksonville and was then driven to the John E. Polk Correctional Facility in Sanford, where he was photographed entering the building with a black coat hiding his head.

  After the arrest we were amazed at, and grateful for, the legions of people, some of them famous, who were still coming to our side. Some came through social media, others in person at marches, rallies, and personal appearances.

  APRIL 12

  The next day, the killer appeared in court in a gray prison jumpsuit, beside his attorney, Mark O’Mara, who said Zimmerman had no money and that he would be providing representation without charge.

  We weren’t there, but we saw the media coverage and heard from prosecutors. The killer, in shackles with his hair cut close to his scalp and wearing a few days’ growth of beard, kept his composure during his first court appearance, but he appeared shocked and dazed as he stood beside O’Mara, who would represent the killer with his co-counsel Don West.

  I first saw them on the television news and read about them in newspapers. They were two middle-aged Orlando lawyers in suits, and while I was told they had impressive law school educations and résumés, they were now representing the killer of my son. So we were adversaries from the start.

  The team would be led by O’Mara, a tall, redheaded longtime trial lawyer, originally from Queens, New York, who was soon all over the media, including in this account from NBC:

  “The central Florida defense attorney and former prosecutor has nearly 30 years of experience under his belt, representing clients in criminal cases ranging from drunk driving to the death penalty. He also has clocked time in front of the television cameras, serving as a legal analyst for local station WKMG Channel 6, where he commented on high-profile cases, including the Casey Anthony case and even the Martin one—before he was hired to represent Zimmerman.”