The St. Louis region responded to the killing of Trayvon Martin both officially and from the grassroots, both city and county, and on both sides of the river.
On Friday morning, some 400 people marched in downtown St. Louis led by Lewis Reed, president of the Board of Aldermen, and featuring a number of young black male speakers. That evening, some 300 people gathered in Tower Grove Park in a public vigil organized by community member Rachel Lee.
At both events, many people wore hoodies, as Martin did on Feb. 26 when the 17-year-old youth was shot and killed in Sanford, Fla. by George Zimmerman, 28. Many brandished cans of iced tea and bags of Skittles, which the youth had purchased at a convenience store before being pursued by Zimmerman, who decided the unarmed youth looked “suspicious.”
On Monday, SWIP Poetry Chapter Organization hosted a tribute television show at WESL in East St. Louis. Events also are being planned at the Harris-Stowe State University quad and amphitheater at noon Thursday, March 29 and at Northoaks Plaza (by Northoaks Bowling Alley) in Northwoods in St. Louis County at noon Saturday.
The public has been mobilized by both steady national media coverage and widespread social media postings.
“One idea, a Facebook profile, an email address and a cellphone … who knew?!” Rachel Lee posted on the social media page she created to organize the Tower Grove Park event.
“Thank you St. Louis for showing up! I can’t and you can’t stop here. Call, email, agitate and stay involved. Let’s push St. Louis in the right direction as we fight for Justice for Trayvon.”
St. Louis was marching in step with the nation, as rallies were organized throughout the U.S. On Thursday night Al Sharpton led a rally of more than 30,000 people in Sanford, many of them from around the nation.
For black men in particular, the message of Martin’s killing – and the fact that Zimmerman was not charged with his murder – was plain. “That could have been any of us,” Sharpton said on Thursday during a national conference call with the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) hosted by journalist George E. Curry.
Saint Louis University Law professor Justin Hansford makes the same point in a commentary in today’s St. Louis American (see page A4). Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, made the point when he preached in a Morehouse College hoodie. LeBron James and the Miami Heat made the point by posing as a group wearing hoodies. Black legislators in the New York State Legislature made the point by wearing hoodies on the Senate floor.
In the St. Louis area, the killing of Trayvon Martin was not seen as an isolated incident. Aldermanic President Lewis Reed explicitly connected Zimmerman’s vigilante act to more common forms of street violence that plague St. Louis; there have been 22 murders in the city of St. Louis thus far in 2012.
Reed emphasized that the neighborhood pattern in St. Louis makes it susceptible to a self-appointed vigilante like Zimmerman. Zimmerman followed Martin when he saw the black youth walking through his gated community at night.
“In St. Louis we have more affluent neighborhoods right next to less affluent neighborhoods,” Reed told The American. “So we have populations of people walking through various neighborhoods, and we would not want to have laws in place that protect a person who has committed murder.”
Local authorities in Sanford, Fla. said that Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law protects Zimmerman, who claims Martin assaulted him after Zimmerman had been trailing the unarmed youth in an automobile.
The SWIP Poetry Chapter in East St. Louis connected its tribute to a Stop The Violence campaign.
East St. Louis is directly connected to the case because Tracy Martin, the youth’s father, is an East St. Louis native. Undre Howard, a friend of Tracy Martin’s, publicly thanked supporters on behalf of the family at Tower Grove Park on Friday night.
Tracy Martin; Trayvon’s mother, Sybrina Fulton; Benjamin Crump, the family lawyer; Sharpton; and former New York Gov. David Patterson participated in the conference call last Thursday with publishers from the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA).
“The ‘Stand Your Ground’ law was not applicable to Zimmerman and should not have been used by police,” Crump told the black publishers. “If anyone should have been protected by ‘Stand Your Ground,’ it was Trayvon.”
Crump questioned the conduct of Sanford police.
“It makes no sense,” Crump said. “Why wasn’t Zimmerman arrested? Why no investigation?”
The U.S. Department of Justice, which investigates and prosecutes misconduct in state and local governments, has opened an investigation into the Sanford police’s handling of the case. Police Chief Bill Lee temporarily stepped down during the investigation.
After a White House spokesman first declined to comment on the case as a local law enforcement matter, President Obama expressed concern on Friday.
“I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this and that everybody pulls together, federal, state and local, to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened,” Obama said.
He added, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”
On the conference call with the Black Press, Tracy Martin recalled looking at the crime scene photograph of his son brought to him by the police.
He said, “I can’t describe what was going through my mind because I was actually staring at a photo of my pride and joy on the ground dead. I still see the photo now – his eyes weren’t closed all the way, his mouth wasn’t closed, it was the worst feeling of my life.”
– This story borrows from George E. Curry’s detailed report on the Trayvon Martin case. For Curry’s complete story, visit stlamerican.com.
