Qualla: Killing of Trayvon Martin

Killing of Trayvon Martin: Introduction

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The original uploader was Mt6617 at English Wikipedia., CC BY 3.0. On the evening of February 26, 2012, seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin walked to a 7-Eleven near the Retreat at Twin Lakes, a gated townhouse community in Sanford, Florida. He bought a bag of Skittles and an Arizona watermelon drink, then started back toward the townhouse where his father's fiancee lived. He never made it. George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old neighborhood watch volunteer, spotted Martin, called the Sanford police non-emergency line to report a suspicious person, and then, despite the dispatcher telling him "we don't need you to do that," left his vehicle. What happened in the minutes that followed ended with Martin shot dead on the wet grass between the townhouses, unarmed, twenty-one days after his seventeenth birthday.

Image: The original uploader was Mt6617 at English Wikipedia. | CC BY 3.0

Killing of Trayvon Martin: A Quiet Suburb, a Loud Silence

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Debra Sweet, CC BY 2.0. Sanford police arrived to find Zimmerman with a bloody nose and lacerations on the back of his head. He told them he had acted in self-defense. Under Florida's Stand Your Ground law, which removes the legal duty to retreat before using deadly force, the police said they lacked pr...

Image: Debra Sweet | CC BY 2.0

Killing of Trayvon Martin: The Trial and Its Fault Lines

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Debra Sweet, CC BY 2.0. The trial in June and July 2013 exposed deep divisions. Prosecutors argued that Zimmerman had profiled and pursued Martin. The defense countered that Zimmerman had been attacked and feared for his life. Legal scholars later noted that the prosecution's decision to charge second-d...

Image: Debra Sweet | CC BY 2.0

Killing of Trayvon Martin: A Nation Responds

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit HectorMoffet, CC BY-SA 3.0. The verdict ignited protests and vigils in more than 100 cities. President Barack Obama spoke personally, saying, "Trayvon Martin could have been me, 35 years ago." The NAACP posted a petition requesting a federal civil rights investigation; within hours, 130,000 people signed it...

Image: HectorMoffet | CC BY-SA 3.0

Killing of Trayvon Martin: Three Words That Became a Movement

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit ann harkness, CC BY 2.0. During and after the trial, Facebook users began posting a phrase that would outlast the case itself: "black lives matter." What started as a social media expression grew into the Black Lives Matter movement, one of the largest civil rights mobilizations of the twenty-first centu...

Image: ann harkness | CC BY 2.0