MEMBERS & VISITORS
IF I HAD A SON, HE’D LOOK LIKE TRAYVON…
“IF I HAD A SON, HE’D LOOK LIKE TRAYVON…” ~ U.S. President Barack Obama
Africa people globally need to understand this about the United States and the wide appeal that Africa has for African Americans who know it as their ancestral homeland. Ten years ago, Trayvon Martin was fatally shot by George Zimmerman, who perceived the unarmed teenager as a threat. He would later be acquitted of all charges in the killing, arguing successfully that he had acted in self defense. These events reignited the conversation about race and justice in America. “The contemporary civil rights movement unfolded directly in response to the murder of Trayvon Martin,” says Henry Louis Gates Jr. Former President Barack Obama argues that Trayvon’s death “was the start of America looking inward and in fits and starts coming to terms with what has always been our original sin.” That original sin was the kidnapping and enslavement of African people for the purpose of building a prosperous America using free slave labor as well as the decimation of 60,000,000+ indigenous people who occupied the land that European settlers largely killed to acquire. This tragic racist trend continue unto this day. In what officials now call one the most unjust military trials in the America’s history, 19 African American soldiers who had fought for America’s freedom in World War I were sentenced to death in 1917 after a clash with the police.
Prof. Oku Singer, Mechanical/Solar Engineer
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