Ralliers across U.S. call for ‘Justice for Trayvon’

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/RICK MCFARLAND --07/20/13--  The AME churches of Arkansas lead the March and Vigil for Justice for Trayvon Martin down Broadway St. in Little Rock Saturday. The march started at the base of the Broadway Bridge in North Little Rock and ended with a rally at the Federal Courthouse in Little Rock.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/RICK MCFARLAND --07/20/13-- The AME churches of Arkansas lead the March and Vigil for Justice for Trayvon Martin down Broadway St. in Little Rock Saturday. The march started at the base of the Broadway Bridge in North Little Rock and ended with a rally at the Federal Courthouse in Little Rock.

ATLANTA - One week after a jury acquitted George Zimmerman in the death of unarmed teen Trayvon Martin, people gathered for nationwide rallies to press for changes to self-defense laws, and for federal civil-rights charges against the former neighborhood-watch leader.

The Florida case has become a flash point in national debates over self-defense, guns, and race relations. Zimmerman, who said he was protecting himself when he shot Martin, identifies himself as Hispanic. Martin was black.

“It’s personal,” said Cincinnati resident Chris Donegan, whose 11-year-old son wore a black hoodie to the rally. Martin was wearing a hoodie when he died. “Anybody who is black with kids, Trayvon Martin became our son.”

The Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network organized the “Justice for Trayvon” rallies and vigils outside federal buildings in at least 101 cities: from New York and Los Angeles to Wichita, Kan., and Atlanta, where people stood in the rain at the base of the federal courthouse, with traffic blocked on surrounding downtown streets.

Chants rang out across the rallies. “Justice! Justice! Justice! … Now! Now! Now!” “We won’t forget.” “No justice! No peace!” Many also sang hymns, prayed and held hands.

And many participants carried signs: “Who’s next?” “I am Trayvon Martin.” “Enough Is Enough.”

Most rallies began at noontime. In New York, hundreds of people - including music superstars Jay-Z and Beyonce, as well as Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton - gathered in the heat.

“Trayvon was a child, and I think sometimes it gets lost in the shuffle because as I sat in the courtroom, it made me think that they were talking about another man,” Fulton said. “And it wasn’t, it was a child.”

Fulton told the crowd she was determined to fight for societal and legal changes needed to ensure that black youths are no longer viewed with suspicion because of their skin color.

“We have moved on from the verdict,” Fulton said. “Of course we’re hurting, of course we’re shocked and disappointed, but that just means that we have to roll up our sleeves and continue to fight.”

At a morning appearance at Sharpton’s headquarters in Harlem, she implored people to understand that the tragedy involved more than Martin alone. “Today it was my son. Tomorrow it might be yours,” she said.

In addition to pushing the Justice Department to investigate civil-rights charges against Zimmerman, Sharpton told supporters he wants to see a rollback of stand-your-ground self-defense laws.

“We are trying to change laws so that this never, ever happens again,” Sharpton said.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott and his fellow Republican legislators say they have no intention of changing the stand-your-ground law, which eliminates a person’s duty to retreat in the face of a serious physical threat. The violent-crime and homicide rates are falling, and 2012 polls show the law, which is on the books in more than 20 states, is favored by a majority of Florida voters.

Zimmerman relied on a traditional self-defense argument and didn’t invoke stand-your-ground, though the judge included a provision about it in instructions allowing jurors to consider it as a legitimate defense. And race wasn’t discussed in front of the jury. But the two topics have dominated public discourse about the case, and came up throughout Saturday’s rallies.

Part of Sharpton’s comments echoed those made by President Barack Obama on Friday. “Racial profiling is not as bad as segregation, but you don’t know the humiliation of being followed in a department store,” Sharpton said.

In Indianapolis, the Rev. Jeffrey Johnson told about 200 attendees that the nationwide effort is about making life safer for young black men. Johnson said young black men still are endangered by racial profiling, and he compared Zimmerman’s acquittal to that of four white officers in the beating of black motorist Rodney King in 1992.

“The verdict freed George Zimmerman, but it condemned America more,” said Johnson, pastor of the Eastern Star Church in Indianapolis and a member of the board of directors of the National Action Network.

In Miami, Tracy Martin spoke about his son.

“I vowed to Trayvon when he was laying in his casket that I would use every ounce of energy in my body to seek justice for him,” Martin said.

“I will continue to fight for Trayvon until the day I die,” he added. “Not only will I be fighting for Trayvon, I will be fighting for your child as well.”

Hundreds of Arkansans marched from just outside North Little Rock’s Dickey-Stephens Park across the Broadway Bridge and to the federal courthouse in Little Rock.

Marchers made the 1-mile trip holding posters and umbrellas as passing drivers honked and hollered to show their support.

Retired Little Rock educational administrator JJ Lacey Jr. looked to Saturday’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette front page for poster inspiration. The poster he held read “Me … 56 years ago,” playing off Obama’s Friday remark that Martin “could have been me 35 years ago.”

Lacey said the verdict in the case was a reminder that racism remains a major issue in America.

“We’ve made great strides, but we have miles to go before we sleep,” he said.

Dejah Taylor, 14, said she had a simple motivation for marching.

“Because justice should be served,” she said. “What happened was wrong.”

In his remarks Friday, Obama said it’s a reality for black men in American to “be followed in a department store” or to walk down the street and “hear the car doors lock.” The nation’s first black president said he had both experiences before he rose to social and political prominence.

At the Little Rock rally, the Rev. Tyrone Broomfield of North Little Rock’s Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church shared a similar experience. Broomfield recalled being approached by police years ago when he went to a store in a warm-up suit to buy a banana cake.

California native La’Monte Johnson at the New Orleans rally said he’s been stopped multiple times by police and handcuffed “because I fit the description of someone they were looking for,” though he noted charges were never filed against him.

“You can be the greatest black guy around, but you can’t get away from it,” he said. “You’re not equal.”

Attorney General Eric Holder announced last week that his department would investigate whether Zimmerman could be charged under federal civil-rights laws. Such a case would require evidence that Zimmerman harbored racial animosity against Martin. Most legal experts say that would be a difficult case to file. Zimmerman’s lawyers have said their client wasn’t driven by race, but by desire to protect his neighborhood.

Holder said the shooting demonstrates the need to re-examine stand-your-ground laws.

Information for this article was contributed by Bill Barrow, Verena Dobnik, Christine Armario, Stacey Plaisance, Amanda Lee Myers and Charles Wilson of The Associated Press and by Jacy Marmaduke of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 07/21/2013

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