USA TODAY International Edition
Book review: Trayvon Martin’s parents honor son
They examine the death, and trial, that ignited the nation
The world will never know who Trayvon Martin — the unarmed 17- year- old fatally shot in Florida by neighborhood watch coordinator George Zimmerman on Feb. 26, 2012 — could have grown up to be.
In a way, we never knew who he was. His humanity was lost, broken down into school records, headlines and 140 characters in the ensuing media scrutiny and trial of Zimmerman for his role in the altercation that ended in Trayvon’s death.
In Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin ( Spiegel & Grau, 331 pp., eeeg out of four), Trayvon’s parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, gather the pieces and attempt to present the whole of who their son was when he was just a boy — before he became a martyr and before his death sparked the Black Lives Matter movement.
He was a boy who fell in love with aviation and dreamed of flying beyond the world he knew. A boy trying to find his place in a society that already viewed him as a man.
But as much as the book is about Trayvon’s life, it’s also a meditation on the criminal justice system that his parents believe did not do him justice.
In Fulton and Martin’s words, it was Trayvon — their “Tray,” who called his mom “Cupcake” and counted everyone he met as a friend — who was put on trial. In alternating chapters, the parents detail how their son’s non- violent infractions were examined under a microscope while Zimmerman’s previous run- ins with the law were, in their view, glossed over. ( Zimmerman was arrested in April 2012 after nationwide protests and charged with second- degree murder. At his trial, Zimmerman said he felt threatened by the teen, whom he had followed in his car and then on foot. He was later acquitted.)
The divorced couple tunnel into how the prosecution was barred from using the phrase “racial profiling” and how cultural differences and linguistic racism hurt the credibility of the prosecution’s key witness, Trayvon’s friend Rachel Jeantel.
Later, Fulton and Martin write that prosecutors neglected to ask the right questions and present more character witnesses to humanize Trayvon in the eyes of the jury.
But while Rest in Power laments the pitfalls of the case and the state of racial justice, Fulton and Martin also offer a glint of hope — in the rallies for justice, the support that extended from Hollywood to the White House and the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement, which brought together people who understood that, no, Trayvon wasn’t an angel because he was a human being.
Rest in Power stands as a reminder — not only of Trayvon’s life and death but of the vulnerability of black lives in a country that still needs to be reminded they matter. It also offers a prayer that someday, as Fulton writes, “the killing will stop” and “the healing will begin.”