Trayvon Martin’s killing and the subsequent acquittal of his accused murderer, George Zimmerman, reopened an old wound in American society and showed how decades, perhaps even centuries old conflicts in the country have never gone away. One Twitter post immediately after the verdict urging people to ‘remember to set your clock back 50 years’ sums up the way many in the African-American community felt about the verdict. Martin, a then 16 year old African-American youth was fatally shot by a neighbourhood watchman after a fight broke out and the latter’s gun was allegedly used in self-defence.

1. Nick Graham, Haliford School
The death of
Trayvon Martin –
where both his
killer and America
were put on trial
Trayvon Martin’s killing and the subsequent
acquittal of his accused murderer,
George Zimmerman, reopened an old
wound in American society and showed
how decades, perhaps even centuries
old conflicts in the country have never
gone away. One Twitter post immediately
after the verdict urging people to
‘remember to set your clock back 50
years’ sums up the way many in the
African-American community felt about
the verdict. Martin, a then 16 year old
African-American youth was fatally shot
by a neighbourhood watchman after a
fight broke out and the latter’s gun was
allegedly used in self-defence.
Numerous issues lie just below the surface of this episode. First, the
fact that Martin was African-American has prompted many, including
the victim’s parents, to speculate that had he been white, the all-
white jury would have reached a different verdict. The fact that the
Sanford police department, where the incident took place, initially
allowed Zimmerman to walk free after he had reported it to the
police has fuelled suspicions of institutionalised racism within the
police force there and elsewhere in the country. In a manner similar
to the way in which the acquittal in 1992 of 5 LAPD police officers
on trial for the beating of Rodney King sparked riots in Los Angeles,
or the controversy provoked by the arrest in 2009 of Harvard professor
Robert Gates by a Boston policeman and the President’s comment
that the latter had acted ‘stupidly’, the case has once again put the
relationship between the African-American community, law
enforcement and the justice system under the spotlight. It is also
suspected, though difficult to prove, that Martin had been racially
profiled by Zimmerman. Many from the black community came out
to denounce what they saw as a legalised case of murder of an
unarmed black teenager, one spokesperson at an NAACP meeting
calling it a ‘modern day lynching’. The reverend Al Sharpton warned
against the dangerous precedent the case sets as a defendant can
now walk free from justice provided they can prove that they acted
in self-defence. However, despite Zimmerman’s acquittal, it should be
noted that the case against him was brought about after a wave of
protests across the country against the actions of Zimmerman and
the police and the intervention of the President himself which forced

2. Nick Graham, Haliford School
The death of
Trayvon Martin –
where both his
killer and America
were put on trial?
(continued)
the state to reopen the case. It is also crucial to note that compared
to 20 years ago, young black teenagers are actually half as likely to
be attacked by anyone, a pattern consistent with crime rates of all
kinds in America which have been gradually falling for a sustained
period now.
Second, the rights of gun owners are once again being openly
debated. Despite being advised not to pursue Martin, Zimmerman
continued to do so and what would usually have resulted in a fight
between two people ended in one of them losing their life. There is
speculation now that the notorious ‘Stand Your Ground’ Florida state
law, that allows a person to use deadly force in circumstances where
they believe their life to be in danger, may produce the kind of
conflict between local and federal government last seen in 2010
when the Justice Department struck down parts of a controversial
Arizona law that, its critics alleged, legalised racial profiling in the
state. Both the President and the Attorney General Eric Holder voiced
their concerns over such laws immediately afterwards. Over 20 states
have such laws on their statute books, although whilst the law was
cited by the judge during the course of the trial, it was not actually
central to the defence team’s case. Potentially, the episode could
spark the sort of seismic intervention by the Federal Government last
seen in 1954 when the Supreme Court ruling in the case of Brown vs.
the Board of Education struck down the segregationist or Jim Crow
laws of the old Confederate states. The Obama administration and
the hugely powerful gun lobby will once again be at loggerheads
should the administration, still licking the wounds inflicted by the
NRA after gun control legislation was defeated on the floor of the
Senate last April, decide to take action and act to overturn the laws.
Whilst many have urged for calm and have stressed the need to look
at the case from a purely legalist point of view, – it was seen that the
prosecution had overplayed their hand by pushing for second degree
murder, others cited the lack of conclusive evidence that proved guilt
– others have pointed to the trial’s deeper and more troubling
significance. The election of a mixed race President and the claim
that it represented a gigantic step forward in creating the sort of
post-racial society that the Civil Rights leaders of the 1960s talked
about may now seem to some a distant and somewhat aberrant
memory.
Questions
Research information about the pressure group the
NAACP?
What is federalism and what are its strengths?
How close is the United States of America to becoming
a colour blind society?