Trayvon Martin was killed in 2012 — and his parents are making sure that the 17-year-old is not forgotten.
The new docuseries, Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story, contextualizes Trayvon's death and explores the movements (including Black Lives Matter and the alt-right movement) that followed. By no means is it easy to watch, and that's by design.
“It’s a hard watch but we want people to see that,” Trayvon’s mom, Sybrina Fulton, told Teen Vogue. “We [didn’t] want to make it real soft and nice. No, it’s a tragedy and we want people to see how tragic this was.” The series uses Sybrina and father Tracy Martin’s 2017 book Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin as source material; episode one features Trayvon's grief-stricken parents, as well as photos of the teenager lying dead in the grass after being shot by George Zimmerman, and audio of the 911 calls that captured the screaming and gunshot from the incident. Even viewers who are familiar with the death of the 17-year-old black teen might wince at the visual retelling of his final moments.
Teen Vogue spoke with Trayvon’s parents about teaming up with Jay-Z to executive produce the docuseries, youth activism, and the change they’re hoping to encourage by keeping their son's legacy in the public eye.
Teen Vogue: In the docuseries, [Tracy Martin] says the death of Trayvon “opened a Pandora’s box.” The Black Lives Matter movement that was started following Zimmerman’s acquittal is still relevant today, as recently as the death of Nia Wilson. Why was it important to discuss the aftermath and lasting impact of Trayvon’s death in the series?
Tracy Martin: I think it’s very important that we keep the Black Lives Matter movement relevant. As soon as you make it irrelevant, I think that’s when you start to have a slew of events happening across the country in our communities where you have unarmed black or brown girls getting gunned down, or stabbed, or throats sliced by non-African-Americans.
If we don’t continue to talk about it [and] keep the fight up, we’ll send a message that we just wanted to make a little noise for a moment and not make this a movement. It’s important that we remind America on a daily basis that Black Lives Matter.
TM: We’re looking for a change in America, not just policy change. We’re looking for an overall change in the American justice system. We’re looking for a change in how people view us as African-American men and women. We’re looking for the justice scales to be balanced. We’re looking for the economy to start balancing out where people [are paid]. We’re looking for women to be recognized as who they are.
It’s bigger than just the Stand Your Ground law. It’s about changing the public perception of who we are as people. And respecting each other as humans. And giving everyone their human rights. Yeah, we want to change the laws, but at the end of the day we want to change the perception of how America views certain people.