Trayvon Martin’s Parents Writing Memoir
Trayvon Martin’s Parents Writing Memoir
Trayvon Martin’s parents are writing a new memoir, just ahead of the five-year anniversary of the teen’s shooting.
Trayvon was an African American from Miami Gardens, Florida, who, at 17 years old, was fatally shot by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, in Sanford, Florida. Martin, who was serving a school suspension, had gone with his father on a visit to his father’s fiancée at her townhouse at The Retreat at Twin Lakes in Sanford. On the evening of February 26, Martin went to a convenience store and purchased candy and a canned drink. As Martin returned from the store, he walked through a neighborhood that had been victimized by robberies several times that year. Zimmerman, a member of the community watch, spotted him and called the Sanford Police to report him for suspicious behavior. Moments later, there was an altercation between the two individuals in which Martin was shot in the chest. Zimmerman, who was injured in the altercation, was not charged at the time of the shooting by the Sanford Police, who said that there was no evidence to refute his claim of self-defense and that Florida’s stand your ground law prohibited law-enforcement officials from arresting or charging him. After national media focused on the tragedy, Zimmerman was eventually charged and tried in Martin’s death. A jury acquitted Zimmerman of second-degree murder and of manslaughter in July 2013.
In a new interview, Chris Jackson, editor-in-chief of Random House imprint One World, explains:
I’m doing a book with Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin’s parents It’s amazing. Everyone who’s been reading the manuscript is in tears by the second chapter. It’s not just about the mournful story about losing a child, but it’s also how that moment ignited this global movement.
He adds,
It first brings Trayvon back to life as the full, three-dimensional, complex kid he was, through his parents’ eyes and then to the dark and confusing days following his death, which slowly transform into the blossoming of a powerful, historic movement for change and healing that we’re still watching unfold five years later. Everyone who’s been reading the manuscript is in tears by the second chapter.
Titled Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin, the book is set to be released January 2017.
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