June 10: Report from Sanford
June 12, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
On June 10, the trial of George Zimmerman was set to begin at 9 am at the Seminole County Criminal Courthouse. In the front of the building a whole line of press was set up with their cameras pointing to the front doors. Suddenly a group marched onto the scene—a delegation from the Stop Mass Incarceration Network and supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Party. Chants rang out: "Trayvon did not have to die. We all know the reason why. The whole system is guilty!" "Trayvon Martin, Emmett Till, No More Youth Getting Killed. The Whole System Is Guilty!"
The media, which included local, national and international press, started running full speed down the road to meet the march with dozens of cameras capturing the signs: A 4'x8' banner with the BAsics 1:13 "No More Generations" quote by Bob Avakian; posters of Revolution front covers advertising revcom.us; a banner with artwork of Trayvon Martin and Emmett Till, saying "NO MORE" with signatures from the nearby Black community of Goldsboro; Bob Avakian Speaks: Revolution—Nothing Less posters, and more. For the next three hours Noche Diaz, spokesperson for the Stop Mass Incarceration Network and the Revolution Club in New York, did at least 20 interviews, getting out the message that "There's a delegation that came down here to show the people of Sanford they are not alone. There are people across this country who are saying, 'We are all Trayvon Martin.' People saw themselves in the hoodie-wearing Trayvon who was hunted down and treated like a criminal and there's many more who are not here, people who are not the youth of color, people who are not racially profiled, but who do not want to live in a society where a whole population of people is isolated and targeted in this way. We want a whole different world."
A few dozen people came to protest and take a stand in front of the courthouse, including people who had been part of protests around the country after the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012. People came from the nearby Black community of Goldsboro as well as other parts of Sanford and nearby Orlando. Two young women who had to pay a traffic ticket tried to go inside the courthouse with Trayvon Martin t-shirts. One woman who drove eight hours from Atlanta brought the sign that she had carried in the 2012 demonstrations. A group of Black law students from FAMU came as observers. Cephus Johnson, "Uncle Bobby," the uncle of Oscar Grant, and Beatrice X, the director of the Oscar Grant Foundation, had come all the way from the San Francisco Bay Area. Oscar Grant was the 22- year-old Black youth shot and killed by a BART cop—the cop was subsequently found guilty of involuntary manslaughter but only sentenced to two years and only served 290 days.
At 12 noon, the revolutionaries gathered in the front of the courthouse. With others all around the country for National Hoodie Day, here at ground zero in Sanford, Florida, hoodies went up and the chant rang out strong and loud: "We are all Trayvon! The Whole Damn System Is Guilty!"
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