Free Republic

New York summers are hot. In July, Western Kentucky University senior Demetrius Freeman, from Atlanta, a New York Times intern at the time, was enflamed enough by the Trayvon Martin march and protest to make a decision without the paper’s staff being aware. Freeman documented a Trayvon Martin march and protests in New York and created prints at reasonable prices. “Photos from the Trayvon Martin March & Protest” was on display and some were sold Tuesday in the Garrett Conference Center at WKU. Six double-sided gallery stands feature 12 images of New Yorkers’ outcries over racial tension, vigilantism, police practices...

Afeni Shakur has been tapped as the keynote speaker for The Trayvon Martin Foundation's "Circle of Mothers Empowerment Retreat." The purpose of the weekend event is "to comfort , inspire, and empower mothers who have experienced the loss of a child due to senseless gun violence."​ “Like myself, Afeni Shakur has had her loss played out in the public eye," says the foundation's founder and Trayvon's mother, Sybrina​ Fulton, of the late Tupac's mom. ​"​We, partnered with Lisa Nichols, will be able to impart the tools and wisdom we've gathered to help everyone that attends." The foundation was formed shortly...

With his decision Friday to inject himself and the White House into the death penalty debate, President Obama once again inflamed a racial controversy in the country – with the only apparent goal of benefiting the Democratic Party in upcoming elections. It’s Trayvon Martin all over again. In March 2012, President Obama was looking at a tough re-election fight when he used a White House news conference to inject himself and his office into the debate over the fatal shooting of the black Florida teenager. On Friday, looking at a disastrous mid-term election looming in November, he used a White...

Until We Learn to Be Sovereign, the Illegitimate State Will Continue.A recent editorial column here at the PanAm Post spoke of the failures of the opposition parties in Venezuela and their culpability in the collapse of their country. The article raises some very important questions about democracy itself. Democracy, after all, is a very good system, and can produce some very positive results. However, it is also a system fraught with incredible danger. Democracy represents the will of the people, but it also represents their whims, their fears, and their prejudices. The Historical Legacy: False Promises, Division, Failure It was...

The Justice Department will collect data about police stops, searches and arrests, aiming to reduce possible effects of racial bias in the justice system, Attorney General Eric Holder said on Monday. The agency is launching a new National Center for Building Community Trust and Justice, which will focus data-collection on five cities over two years as part of a $4.75 million pilot program. Holder said in a video message the initiative grew from the case of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed African-American teenager shot and killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Orlando in 2012 and from President Barack Obama to...

According to Newsday, Martin said he would like to see his son's name "in the history books of modern days, taking his place beside Emmett Till." Martin's son was fatally shot by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who later was acquitted of second-degree murder under Florida's "stand your ground" law.

Tracy Martin wants his son, Trayvon, to be remembered as this century's Emmett Till, and have his death reawaken the nation's lagging civil rights movement. "We want him to be known as that child of central Florida who galvanized the country," said Martin, who was a guest speaker at Nassau Community College on Wednesday. "We would like to see his name in the history books of modern days, taking his place beside Emmett Till [though] Emmett Till has a legacy I don't think any African-American child will surpass." Till, 14, was killed in Mississippi in 1955 after being accused of...

*Famed film director Spike Lee has expressed his desire to see the Trayvon Martin story told on the big screen. During an interview with theGrio, Lee commended 27-year-old new director Ryan Coogler for bringing his acclaimed independent film, “Fruitvale Station,” the Oscar Grant story, to the big screen. He expressed his admiration for the film while stating that the film business isn’t built in favor of young directors like Coogler to succeed. “Love it…. It’s great,” Lee said of Fruitvale Station. “But it’s something that I have been doing for 15 year [sic]. I teach film. That is my job...

The names of the six-member jury panel that acquitted George Zimmerman in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin have been made public for the first time, after a new court order, records show. Circuit Judge Debra Nelson, who had previously ordered the jurors' identifying information be kept confidential, granted access to the names in a ruling March 21.

USC’s Black Student Assembly (BSA) took a somber stance, honoring Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis and other victims of racial violence at a Candlelight Vigil March 5. BSA Executive Director Ama Amoafo-Yeboah led the service to explore the past seven decades through short speeches and focus on the pattern of legalized lynching, police brutality and the infamous Stand-Your-Ground law and their social implications on race and ethnicity. “The goal of the Trayvon Martin-Jordan Davis Candlelight Vigil is to provide a space through which people can come together across those lines of race and difference that too often keeps our community divided,”...

Florida is ground zero for the weird and unusual, but there are many people, places and events that Florida can point to with pride: Gov. Reubin Askew, our world-class beaches, beautiful wetlands, Disney World, Gasparilla and our universities’ title-winning athletic teams. But George Zimmerman is not something we’re proud of. For those people who have not listened to any form of media for the last few years, George Zimmerman is best known as the neighborhood watchman-turned-vigilante who shot and killed an unarmed 16-year old by the name of Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman played police, judge and jury, assuming Trayvon was “up...

Like the rest of the world, I was stunned to hear Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant argue that it was somehow an unecessary burden for a black man to stand in support of the late Trayvon Martin. If anything, the Trayvon Martin case brought black people together in ways that we haven’t seen since the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The case was clear cut: Trayvon had no weapon. He wasn’t bothering anybody. He was stalked out and murdered for appearing to look like a “thug.” George Zimmerman is a free man and later showed that he...

TV journalist Lisa Bloom has just written a book about the Trayvon Martin case. Curious to find out more, I watched her interview with Cenk Uygur of “The Young Turks.” She started out by explaining that she wrote the book to demonstrate Zimmerman’s guilt, and show that the jury got it wrong. Instead of presenting new evidence, or a more compelling interpretation, she ignored exculpatory evidence, mangled the facts, made bogus inferences, and omitted much..

LA Lakers star Kobe Bryant has been heavily criticized after saying that he didn't think he should necessarily have an opinion on Trayvon Martin's shooting just because he is African American. During an interview for a profile piece in the New Yorker, which will be published on April 4, the 35-year-old said also took the opportunity to pour scorn on Lebron James and the Miami Heat for posting a photo of them wearing hoodies in the aftermath of Martin's death at the hands of George Zimmerman. Asked about that, Bryant said he took exception to any idea that Africa-Americans should...

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder strongly hinted on Thursday that the government will soon determine if George Zimmerman will face federal civil rights charges in the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin. A self-appointed neighborhood watch patrolman, Zimmerman was acquitted by a Florida jury of murder charges last year and soon thereafter the federal government announced that the Justice Department would be probing the case for any civil rights violations that might have occurred. The 17-year-old Martin was unarmed and just steps away from the doorsteps of his father's gated community home when Zimmerman ignored a police dispatcher's stern advice to...

Ever since George Zimmerman gunned down Trayvon Martin in his Sanford, Fla., gated community, it’s become an article of faith that the rash of lethal shootings in public places—from the Florida moviegoer who was killed after a texting and popcorn-throwing incident to Jordan Davis, shot in his car at a Jacksonville, Fla., gas station to last week’s lethal shooting in an Arizona Walmart—is attributable to the “stand your ground” laws enacted over the past decade in 26 states across the country. Aggressive human interaction, post-Trayvon, now follows a painfully familiar pattern: An altercation occurs. Someone says he feared for his...

The parents of Trayvon Martin's shooter, George Zimmerman, are suing Roseanne Barr for tweeting their home address in what they say was an attempt to send vigilantes after them. Robert Zimmerman and Gladys Zimmerman's lawsuit says the actress and comedian also said she herself might go to their home herself. They said she posted their private information in violation of Twitter's privacy policies. “Roseanne Barr knew at the time of her tweets and her threat to personally come to the Zimmerman's home that it was an open and obvious call for vigilante justice… intended by Roseanne Barr to cause a...

SANFORD - The parents of George Zimmerman have sued comedienne Roseanne Barr, saying they fled their Lake Mary home in the middle of the night and have been unable to return because she posted their address on Twitter two years ago. Robert Zimmerman Sr. and Gladys Zimmerman filed suit Monday in state circuit courtm accusing Barr of trying to incite "a lynch mob to descend" and carry out "vigilante justice." According to the suit, Barr published their address on Twitter March 29, 2012, a month after their son, George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager in Sanford but...

An Orlando gun show may be canceled because the venue, Majestic Event Center, does not want Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman to attend, clickorlando.com is reporting.

SANFORD — Former Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman says he's done fighting in court with Special Prosecutor Angela Corey. In paperwork filed at the Seminole County criminal courthouse Feb. 20, Zimmerman says he is giving up his promised fight to make the state pay his legal bills. He's also wants to put an end to his lawyers' fight with prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda, whom they had asked a judge to punish, alleging unethical behavior, including hiding evidence. If Circuit Judge Debra S. Nelson agrees, that would clear the way for Zimmerman to move forward with his defamation suit against...