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Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old that was killed by George Zimmerman in 2012, would’ve been 27-years-old on Feb.5. After his death, his mother Sybrina Fulton became a social justice activist and founded her own organization, “Mothers of the Movement,” with other women who have lost their children while they were in police custody or fate having police contact including Mike Brown’s mother Lezley McSpadden, Eric Garner’s mother Gwen Carr, Sandra Bland’s mother Geneva Reed-Veal, Jordan Davis’ mother Lucy McBath and more.
To celebrate his 27th birthday, the Trayvon Martin Foundation and attorney Ben Crump organized a peace walk at Ives Estates Park in Miami, Florida. On Feb. 1, Fulton’s essay, “Trayvon: Ten Years Later: A Mother’s Essay,” was released on Amazon Original Stories to further commemorate his memory. In the essay, she shared what the last 10 years have been like without her son and how she has been keeping her son’s legacy alive.
“In this moving essay, Sybrina imparts to this generation and the next the lessons and wisdom she’s gained in the past ten years—about life, love, and loss; about bad faith; about what changes have and have not occurred; and about the power of her own voice in the gathering storm of a profoundly divided country,” read a synopsis. “Above all, Sybrina knows what it takes to keep moving forward.”
While reflecting about the past decade with Good Morning America, she said she still has a “hole in her heart” over the loss of her son, who was killed on Feb. 26. She did say that she feels there has been some social progress since his death.
“I absolutely think that change is happening; it’s just going a little slow,” Fulton said.
She added that even though Martin was her baby boy, she knows that Martin represents so many Black young men who were wronged.
“I never lose sight that that was my baby,” she said. “By the same token, I know that Trayvon Martin is a symbol for other Trayvon Martins that you don’t know, that you have not said their name … He was just a vessel that represents so many others.”
