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“I found myself on the
floor,” said Sybrina Fulton, describing both her literal
physical reaction and emotional low point, following the
high-profile murder of her son Trayvon Martin the night of
February 26, 2012.
Yet, “the floor” was a
place Fulton was determined to rise from rather than linger,
she shared with an audience of 250 persons at Saving Our
Sons, Saving Our Lives, a community conversation
sponsored by the Neighborhood Health Association (NHA).
In her haunting but
inspirational personal story, the resilient Fulton described
how she responded to her personal tragedy by establishing
The Trayvon Martin Foundation to fill awareness and advocacy
gaps of “how violent crime impacts the families of the
victims.” She also started the Circle of Mothers to help
mothers who have lost children or family members to gun
violence to both manage their own healing process and also
strategize how to prevent violent deaths in communities
across the nation.
Given the prevalence of
racial profiling and the centrality of race and violence in
the American experience, Fulton stressed the critical need
of positive cultural affirmation through faith, family and
self-care on the journey from tragedy to triumph.
“In order to help me get
through it,” she said, “I got up every day, looked in the
mirror and kept saying to myself ‘You are Strong!’
And, with all the work and
everything, I go to church, I still make time to get my
nails and toes done because I still have to have time for
Sybrina. I hang out with my family on Sundays, Monique (my
cousin who travels with me) is there. A lot of people don’t
take time out for themselves, but I do, and that’s probably
how I stay motivated. If I can’t get myself together then I
can’t help anybody else, and so I feel like the first part
is to make sure that I get myself together,” she added.
What can be done,
practically, to protect and edify black lives in a system
that regards black lives as disposable?
Fulton, who recently
announced her candidacy for the Miami/Dade County Board of
Commissioners in Florida, recommends a strategy of
multiplying our voices in order to amplify our message.
“First
of all, it’s not necessarily the laws, but it’s mindsets,
because if you can see a young man walking down the street
that’s unarmed, that’s not doing anything wrong and you can
look at him as being suspicious, that’s within a person’s
heart and in their mind. It had nothing to do with Trayvon
Martin, the person. It was Trayvon’s skin color that made
the person follow him, chase him, pursue him and murder
him. We have to change mindsets in order to change the
people.
Right now, I’m trying to change the people that are part of
the government that’s in Miami and I can only do so much
because this is a national problem. So even with what I’m
doing with helping other communities, helping other mothers,
helping other families, it’s just a small portion of the big
picture that needs to be corrected. More people have to get
angry. More people have to get involved, more people have to
stay woke and say okay, what am I doing? You can’t just
click like on something that’s on social media and think oh,
well I did my part to help an organization, right? You
have to make sure that you join one of those nonprofit
organizations and that you’re doing the work. If you don’t
do the work then you are a part of the problem. There are so
many people that just sit around and talk about the
situation, but what are they actually doing?
Another reason why I’m running for commissioner in Miami is
because often times we look at our elected officials and say
well why didn’t she do this and why didn’t he do that? But
while we’re looking at them, we should be saying ‘but what
am I doing?’ Elected officials can’t do everything. They
need you on their team. They need you on their committee.
When they have complaints about something, they need you to
stand up with them. One person’s single vocal complaint
about something is just one person’s little small voice, but
if it’s a group of people, other people will listen and
they’re gonna hear you and act and react to those things.
So, we’ve just got to get more involved. That’s one of the
major things is to get more involved,” Fulton explained.
Are there other ways to continue efforts to counter both the
subtle and explicit behavior and attitudes which devalues
black bodies and black humanity?
Fulton also encourages the community to visit the
trayvonmartinfoundation.org website to see some of the
things that she is doing in the community and to also visit
sybrinafulton.com in order to get a complete and accurate
description of who she is. To most, she is only known as
Trayvon Martin’s mom. Very few know that she is also “Jabari
Fulton’s mom” and has a college degree and 24 years plus of
employment, working for public housing to help
underprivileged residents.”
I left NHA’s Serving Our Sons, Saving Our Lives
convinced that Sybrina Fulton’s visit will serve as the
catalyst for much collaborative work to take place in
Toledo.
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, at
drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org
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