Trayvon Martin's parents take readers beyond the news cycle with an
account only they could give: the intimate story of a tragically
foreshortened life and the rise of a movement.
On a February evening in 2012, in a small town in central Florida,
seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin was walking home with candy and a can
of juice in hand and talking on the phone with a friend when a fatal
encounter with a gun-wielding neighborhood watchman ended his young
life. The watchman was briefly detained by the police and released.
Trayvon's father--a truck driver named Tracy--tried to get answers from
the police but was shut down and ignored. Trayvon's mother, a civil
servant for the city of Miami, was paralyzed by the news of her son's
death and lost in mourning, unable to leave her room for days. But in a
matter of weeks, their son's name would be spoken by President Obama,
honored by professional athletes, and passionately discussed all over
traditional and social media. And at the head of a growing nationwide
campaign for justice were Trayvon's parents, who--driven by their
intense love for their lost son--discovered their voices, gathered
allies, and launched a movement that would change the country.
Five years after his tragic death, Travyon Martin's name is still evoked
every day. He has become a symbol of social justice activism, as has his
hauntingly familiar image: the photo of a child still in the process of
becoming a young man, wearing a hoodie and gazing silently at the
camera. But who was Trayvon Martin, before he became, in death, an icon?
And how did one black child's death on a dark, rainy street in a small
Florida town become the match that lit a civil rights crusade?
Rest in Power, told through the compelling alternating narratives of
Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, answers, for the first time, those
questions from the most intimate of sources. It's the story of the
beautiful and complex child they lost, the cruel unresponsiveness of the
police and the hostility of the legal system, and the inspiring journey
they took from grief and pain to power, and from tragedy and
senselessness to meaning.
Praise for Rest in Power
"A reminder--not only of Trayvon's life and death but of the
vulnerability of black lives in a country that still needs to be
reminded they matter."--USA Today
"A brave, heart-rending narrative from the parents who lost their son
far too soon."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Remarkably candid and deeply affecting."--Booklist (starred
review)
