Sybrina Fulton: “Trayvon Martin Could Have Been Anybody’s Son”

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The New Yorker

Lizza, Wnyc, Wickenden, News, President, Washington, Obama, Barack, Politics

4.3 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 6 November 2023

⏱️ 16 minutes

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Summary

Sybrina Fulton was thrust into the national spotlight more than a decade ago for the worst possible reason: her son, Trayvon Martin—an unarmed teen-age boy returning from the store—was shot. Her son’s body was tested for drugs and alcohol, but not the self-appointed neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman, who killed him, claimed self-defense, and was acquitted. “Trayvon Martin could have been anybody’s son at seventeen,” Fulton tells David Remnick. He was an affectionate “mama’s boy” who wound up inspiring a landmark civil-rights movement: Black Lives Matter. B.L.M. became a cultural touchstone and a political lightning rod, but all its efforts can’t make Fulton whole again. “I think I’m going to be recovering from his death the rest of my life,” she says. “It’s so unnatural to bury a child,” she says. Fulton has become an activist and founded Circle of Mothers, which hosts a gathering for mothers who have lost children or other family members to gun violence.

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1:11.6	This is the political scene, and I'm David Remnick.
1:17.6	It's been a decade since a slogan, a hashtag, made its way around the world.
1:26.6	And unlike most hashtags, this one stuck. Three words,
1:31.5	Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter doesn't sound like a radical proposition. In fact, it should
1:38.9	be self-evident, but those words became a rallying cry.
1:42.7	Black Lives Matter. Black Lives cry. Black Lives Matter!
1:48.5	Then an organization, and then a movement that rivaled the civil rights era of 50 years earlier.
1:54.7	The phrase Black Lives Matter first appeared in a Facebook post after an unarmed teenager,
1:59.9	Trayvon Martin, was shot and his killer walked free.
2:06.4	After George Zimmerman was acquitted, I think there was a real sense.
	...

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