PHOTO ESSAY: Justice for Trayvon Martin rally in Greensboro

Justice for Trayvon Martin, 7-20-13, a set on Flickr. Photos by Quentin L. Richardson of "Justice for Trayvon Martin" rally at federal courthouse in Greensboro on July 20

500 rally in Winston-Salem in support of Trayvon Martin

Nicole Little clasps hands with Darryl Hunt while Larry Little looks on during a rally to support Trayvon Martin.

Nicole Little, a recent Wake Forest graduate, shared the bed of a pickup truck as a stage with Larry Little (no relation), a former Black Panther and former Winston-Salem councilman, and Darryl Hunt, a man who was wrongfully convicted for the murder of a white newspaper editor as hundreds gathered on a grassy hillside in East Winston to demonstrate support for Trayvon Martin.

Larry Little speaks, Winston Mutual building in back

"I have nieces, I have nephews, I have friends, I have colleagues, whomever it may be — and this could be any one of you all," Nicole Little said. "Any one of you all. And that's the message that we're trying to stress today. At the height of this trial I saw so many people talking so much, had so many opinions to say on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. The memes were out of control. I asked myself: How can we make this work? Social media is a powerful measure. Very powerful. Everybody has something on their phone where they're able to reach a thousand people with the click of a button. Do you know how powerful that is?"

Little decided to organize the rally on Sunday morning and began mobilizing friends and colleagues through social media.

"It's okay to post a status," she said. "It's okay to black out your profile. It's okay to do all of that. But if we take that social media presence and translate it into something physical, we could make a difference in Winston-Salem and all across the United States. Don't let nobody tell you different."

Larry Walters (in striped shirt) attended with his son.

Larry Little drew a comparison between Martin, an unarmed black teenager who was shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer, and Emmett Till, who was murdered by a white lynch mob in the 1950s in a case that resulted in no convictions.

"In 1954, in Money, Mississippi, a young, black male, Emmett Till was brutally murdered because he dared to talk to a white woman," Little said. "He was brutally murdered. He was given a railroad of a trial.... An all-white jury found these murderers not guilty of killing Emmett Till. Last Saturday, essentially an all-white jury in Sanford, Florida found George Zimmerman not guilty of murdering Trayvon Martin."

Little said Till's death inspired the civil rights movement.

"This is your modern-day Emmett Till struggle," he said. "An old head like me has more yesterdays than tomorrows. It's about you, the youth, the future and the young at heart.

Protesters lined Martin Luther King Jr. Drive

"Often, when we got successful as a people we moved out of our community, out into the suburbs, or whatever you want to call it," Little continued. "Trayvon wasn't in the 'hood; he was in a gated community. He wasn't safe because he was black. He was killed by George Zimmerman, tracked down and killed like a dog."

Larry Walter brought his 9-year-old son, Jalen Laughlin, to the rally.

"I just feel like the system failed us," Walter said. "Someone killed someone and got away with it. Point blank."

Tony Caldwell was one of many people discussing the verdict in numerous small conversations that took place at the rally.

Dee Jackson (wearing pink dress) posed with friends.

"Given the verdict of not guilty, it showed me just where we are in terms of being citizens — I'm talking about black men," he said. "A young man who was coming home from a store minding his own business and was followed by a stranger, I would have reacted the same way. There would probably have been a confrontation. To get a not-guilty verdict, it's hurtful. It lit a fire in me, and it lit a fire in me and all these people here. We've got to get these laws changed."

The program included not only speeches, but also poetry and freedom songs, including "We Who Believe in Freedom" with the refrain and verse: "We who believe in freedom cannot rest/ We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes/ Until the killing of black men, black mothers' sons/ Is as important as the killing of white men, white mothers' sons."

Lenee Fair brought her nephew, Nehemiah Dalton.

Councilman Derwin Montgomery, who represents the East Ward, connected the Trayvon Martin case to the story of Jordan Davis, another 17-year-old Florida teenager who was killed by an adult.

"He was shot and he was killed in his car because they said that the music was too loud," Montgomery said. "They said he had a shotgun, but when they investigated there was no shotgun in the car. There was another young, black male dead because someone thought his life was not as valuable as somebody else's. We have to come together as a community to say that we stand for justice, we speak up for justice and we ensure that his voice will not end here."

Jimmy Boyd, a former president of the Winston-Salem NAACP, said the gathering reminded him of the 1960s.

"I don't see a lot of people with silver and gray here; it's young folks," he said. "That's powerful. I wish we could see these lines of people at the ballot box. I wish we could see them in meetings."

The crowd swelled to about 500 as the evening wore on, and people fanned out along both sides of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive between New Walkertown Road and East 5th Street, standing about six deep on the sidewalk and in the yard of an apartment row.

The atmosphere was both festive and determined as demonstrators lined the street, cheering wildly as departing protesters blared car horns in a cacophony of solidarity and young men zoomed by on motorbikes.

"No justice, no peace," they chanted.

Zimmerman verdict elicits disappointment, sadness, resolve in Greensboro protest

Ashanti Sanders signs a poster in solidarity with Martin.

William Robinson speaks about the acquittal.

Tigress McDaniel gives a legal seminar.

Upwards of 150 people gathered in front at February One Place in front of the International Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro on Sunday to show support for slain Florida teenager Trayvon Martin in the wake of a jury's acquittal of George Zimmerman.

Protesters carried signs reading "The life of a child should be respected" and "Stop or my Skittles will shoot." They chanted "No justice, no peace; no racist police" and "Brown, yellow, black or white; same struggle, same fight."

Jermaine Taylor came to the protest with his wife and three children, including a 2-year-old son.

"Just to know I'm raising a young, black male, it feels like my son is not safe," he said. "I don't feel safe with him being by himself. I feel that the justice system failed us [by] not allowing all the trial evidence to be heard. I don't know what guilty looks like. [Zimmerman] stereotyped [Martin] as looking like he was up to no good. I don't want my son to be on the bad end of looking guilty."

Early in the protest, which began at 5 p.m., a group split off to march to the Guilford County Jail, accompanied by Cakalak Thunder Drum Corps. With their return, the crowd in front of the civil rights museum swelled to about 175. Police allowed the protesters to occupy February One place because there was not adequate space on the sidewalk to accommodate them. Protest leaders cautioned against spilling into Elm Street.

Several people took turns speaking about the meaning of the verdict, in which a jury found Zimmerman not guilty of all charges in the killing of Martin on Saturday night.

William Robinson said the killing of Emmett Till, a black teenager lynched by a white mob in Mississippi in the 1950s that resulted in acquittals, set the stage for the verdict in the Zimmerman case. 

"We know better," Robinson said. "It seems wrong because it is wrong. When they killed Trayvon Martin, they killed a part of me."

Tigress McDaniel said she worries about how her 3-year-old son will be perceived by people like George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain who stalked Martin because he thought the young man looked suspicious. Martin was wearing a hoodie.

"I put my son in a Gap hoodie; I didn't even know anything about this," McDaniel recalled. "And then the case was publicized. The cutest little red hoodie. And when I heard about this, my heart dropped into the pit of my stomach.

A former law student, McDaniel wound up giving an impromptu legal seminar.

"It will come to a point when thing like this will become default," she said. "'Oh, that's just 'stand your ground.' How does that make sense? He came into this space."

Alisia Pacheco was walking downtown when she stumbled on the rally. McDaniel's talk resonated with her. Why couldn't Trayvon Martin stand his ground? McDaniel asked.

"The police already said, 'Stand down,'" Pacheco said, alluding to a police dispatcher's instructions to Zimmerman to not follow Martin.

Ed Whitfield tied the events in Florida to the community's treatment of young black men in Greensboro. He said young people in Smith Homes, a public housing community, "are treated as if they have no value." Relating the racial profiling of Martin to a curfew imposed on young people in Greensboro in the wake of public disorder, Whitfield said adults have a responsibility to ensure that there are wholesome activities for young people.

"Every one of these kids we've lost is a loss to all of us," Whitfield said, "because we lose their creativity. We lose their energy."

An inability, or lack of desire, to coordinate

It's no surprise that Trayvon Martin's murder sparked outrage and action in Greensboro, as it has around the world. Yet from my vantage point receiving one press release after the other, it's difficult not to wonder why the groups of people organizing protests and marches on the issue seem incapable or uninterested in coordinating their efforts.

Just this morning, I read a press release from the UNCG NAACP calling for a related march on April 11 and another from RockStar Church Inc. announcing plans for prayer vigils on the issue every week this month (April 5, 12, 19 and 26). As part of the demonstration against the new Guilford County Jail on April 12, there will be a Trayvon Martin youth contingent. On top of that, there is an open mic event about the issue tomorrow.

Greensboro has already seen back-to-back protests related to the case, first with an action at the post office called by DJs from 102 JAMZ and then a rally and march at Governmental Plaza the next day. I am terrible at estimating crowd sizes, but both events drew hundreds of supporters. A week later, an event about Martin at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum reportedly turned out hundreds as well.

There's nothing wrong with having separate or multiple events that highlight the same issues, in fact it may be more effective for keeping the conversation about the case — and everything it brings up — going. It makes sense that an open mic event, which is a significantly different format, would exist as a stand alone event. But it seems like two things are happening here.

First, some of the organizations calling for protests appear to have conflicting interests and do not want to work together. I am not surprised that a prayer vigil beginning at 6:30 a.m. doesn't appeal to the people organizing a demonstration against the new jail. Even though there were brief religious references at the march at Governmental Plaza, where the two largest banners were from the International Socialist Organization, I am not surprised that an explicitly religious group wants to go it alone.

Similarly, the ICRC&M and 102 JAMZ have their own agenda and names to promote, their own style of organizing to offer. I am not questioning whether anyone is genuinely taking action around the case — my perception is that all parties involved are — but it seems that self interest is also playing a decisive role in keeping these actions separate.

Secondly, there appears to be a huge lack of communication. Why not have the UNCG NAACP march on April 12 (a day after it is planned) beginning with a separate rally and turn into a feeder march to the new jail in coordination with the Trayvon Martin contingent? Do these groups even know about each other's events? Could the post office action have been scheduled for the end of the march at Government Plaza instead of two similar events a mere 25 hours apart?

In my experience doing this type of work in Greensboro and talking to people regularly who are involved in it, social justice work (or however people want to refer to it) happens in silos here. There is amazing and important organizing happening, but even groups working on the exact same issue seem unable to coalesce and cooperate. There are certainly legitimate reasons for different groups to approach the same issue differently, but when every single group appears to be trying to fight it alone, it's hard to imagine their isn't a more effective approach.

I'd love to hear more people's thoughts on this issue. It's possible that I am totally off the mark, but I've heard this complaint from people working on immigration, homelessness, get out the vote campaigns and so many other issues. The local efforts against Amendment One seem to be a notable exception, but maybe people on the grassroots level of the issue see it differently. What do you think?