Topics:Occupy Wall Street, Trayvon Martin
On Wednesday night, around 5,000 people took to the streets of New York to demand justice for Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old African-American who was killed by a neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman, last month. Martin was armed only with a pack of Skittles when Zimmerman shot him, claiming the boy looked “suspicious.” Martin’s crime — the same one committed by Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Ramarley Graham and others — appears to have been walking while black. Zimmerman has not been charged in the killing, despite a national outcry.
Organizers of the “Million hoodie march” for Trayvon Martin asked protesters to converge at Manhattan’s Union Square on Wednesday evening wearing hooded sweatshirts, to symbolically highlight the profiling used against non-white youths in hoodies. The plaza, from which Occupy supporters were evicted by police the night before, was once again full of Occupy participants and hundreds of others galvanized by the Trayvon Martin case. Many young, black marchers donned hoodies and held signs reading, “Am I next?”
Natasha Lennard covers the Occupy movement for Salon. A British-born, Brooklyn-based journalist, she has been covering Occupy Wall Street since before the first sleeping bag was unrolled in Zuccotti Park. One of the first journalists arrested at an Occupy action, she has managed to enrage Andrew Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. You can follow her on Twitter (@natashalennard), and email her any Occupy updates/videos/ideas to natasha.lennard@gmail.com More Natasha Lennard
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/22/occupiers_march_for_trayvon_martin_at_million_hoodie_march/