Trayvon Martin Walk Attracts Large Crowds

Saturday was a day of remembrance for Trayvon Martin, as about a thousand people — including actor Jamie Foxx — united with the late teen’s family to march, pray, listen to music and hear inspirational messages, while pressing for justice in his killing.

The Trayvon Martin Foundation sponsored the “I am Trayvon Day of Remembrance Community Peace Walk,” to honor the unarmed, Miami Gardens teen fatally shot in Sanford on Feb. 26 of last year by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman.

“We’re here to let the community, and particularly teenagers, know that they have the right to walk in peace without being followed, without being harmed and without being killed,” Trayvon’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, told The Miami Herald at the start of the event at Ives Estate Park at 20901 NE 16th Ave. in north Miami-Dade. She said the walk would be held annually.

Fulton, Trayvon’s father Tracy and brother Jahvaris held up a huge banner and marched through the park as the crowd trailed them, chanting “I am Trayvon Martin.” Many wore T-shirts emblazoned with Trayvon’s picture, as the line snaked toward a bandshell.

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Foxx, an Academy Award winning actor, wore a red T-shirt with Trayvon’s picture at the center, and said he came in support because he is a father.

“Every once in a while, something comes around that touches you like nothing else,” Foxx said, of Trayvon’s slaying.

“I wasn’t going to miss this day, and I’m not going to miss a day in the future when we can step out and remember Trayvon,” he said.

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Miami-Dade Commissioner Barbara Jordan also took the stage, saying Trayvon’s parents “give a new definition to Stand your Ground: to stand for your children and to be committed to your children and to be committed to your community.”

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