PANAMA CITY – Leaders from the local black community spoke Sunday at a youth empowerment rally that Bay County Branch NAACP president Rufus Woods said helped turn “anger to action, and pain to power” after George Zimmerman was acquitted of murder in the slaying of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.
More than 60 people attended the rally at
“There’s nothing wrong with anger, it’s what you do when you get angry,” Woods said. “We have to channel our anger in a positive way.”
A candlelight vigil and prayer service was later held outside the Bay County Juvenile Justice Courthouse. A photo of Martin was placed outside the courthouse for the vigil, and several attendees wore “I am Trayvon Martin” t-shirts imprinted with the slain teen’s face.
Also at the vigil, the Bay County Chapter of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition announced that several of its members will join the protestors known as the Dream Defenders in their sit-in at the Florida Capitol in
Sunday during the rally, Woods and other speakers were strongly critical of the self-defense law, which they believe played a part in Zimmerman’s acquittal. For some local black youths, the law has come to symbolize institutionalized prejudice, said Bay County NAACP Youth Council president Ashley Frink.
Her Bay County NAACP Youth Council colleague, Jamil Davis, shared her sentiment.
“Basically with the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial,” he said, “a lot of our youth are actually fearful of a lot of things that could possibly happen to them, particularly with them knowing this incident happened in the state we live in. And it’s the way that the entire case was handled by police, and the subsequent trial.”
But President Barack Obama’s most recent comments on Martin’s killing have cut through the confusion and anger some of those kids felt after the Zimmerman verdict, Frink said.
In a White House press conference, Obama said, “When Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.”
Frink also said it was a wake-up call for some kids.
“I personally feel like it was very much needed, because a lot of things they see that go on, it takes a certain person to say it for them to be like, ‘Wow. That’s something to really take into consideration,’” she said. “When they hear a person of such high power say it, they know it’s really important.”