Tag: Sybrina Fulton

The pain and suffering of the nine months since unarmed Michael Brown was shot and killed by a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer has given birth to a new era of intolerance for police brutality. On the heels of Mother’s Day, more than a thousand community members turned out for a luncheon to honor those whose children lost their lives to violence and to join forces with the Black Women’s Forum (BWF), of which Congresswoman Maxine Waters is co-founder.

Like the 1963 march, the 2013 march has the potential to become a watershed moment in history. But to make it so, we must do the hard work of building genuine relationships and alliances across the lines of color, nationality, gender and sexual orientation. We must build a grassroots agenda and an organizing strategy. We must leverage the people power represented at the march to effect public opinion and national policies.

If ever I thought myself objective and unbiased, the George Zimmerman trial is definitely not that moment. So let’s cut to the chase. Any attorney, jury member, judge or white person in that courtroom is not going to understand Rachel Jeantel. And I don’t expect them to. In fact, I certainly, like my fellow writer Rachel Samara, understand why white people wouldn’t like Rachel.

The parents of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, who was shot and killed by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman, have reached a settlement with the homeowners association (HOA) in their wrongful death case against the Sanford subdivision, Retreat at Twin Lakes, where he died, for a sum assumed to be more than $1 million.

Not long ago, on Feb. 26, Trayvon Martin was just another unknown African American whose young life was tragically and brutally cut short. Today Trayvon Martin’s name has become a universal rallying cry for justice in every nook and cranny of the unjust U.S.