# Trayvon Martin's Death The February 2012 shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida was ignored for weeks until an online petition by Martin's parents went viral in March. The story then became one of the defining social media stories of the early 2010s, spawning the Million Hoodie March, the #WeAreTrayvonMartin hashtag, and the Skittles-and-iced-tea protest image. ## Origin On February 26, 2012, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by 28-year-old George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain, in Sanford, Florida. Martin was unarmed and had just walked back from a convenience store with a bag of Skittles and an iced tea[7]. Zimmerman called the police to report Martin as a suspicious person, was told not to follow him, followed him anyway, and shot him during a physical confrontation that Zimmerman later described as self-defense. He was taken into custody that evening but was not charged[6]. For nearly two weeks the case drew little attention. Martin's parents, Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, launched a Change.org petition on March 8, 2012 asking Florida's 4th District State's Attorney Angela Corey to investigate and prosecute Zimmerman[7]. That petition is what pulled the case into national coverage. By March 21 ABC News reported it was the fastest-growing petition in Change.org's history, with 800 signatures per minute[2]. - **Platform:** Change.org (petition) / Twitter (viral spread) - **Creator:** Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton (petition creators) - **Date:** 2012 ## Overview The shooting of Trayvon Martin generated a cluster of linked internet campaigns rather than a single meme format. The symbols that recurred across posts were the hoodie Martin was wearing, the bag of Skittles he had just bought, and the can of Arizona Iced Tea he was carrying when he was killed[1]. These items showed up in protest photography, Tumblr single-topic blogs, hashtag chains like #WeAreTrayvonMartin and #MillionHoodies, and later in offensive imitations[6]. The campaign ran on a format of personal identification: participants photographed themselves in hoodies and posted the images to Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook, often with text explaining a time they had been racially profiled[2]. The Change.org petition started by Martin's parents was the center of gravity. It gathered 2.2 million signatures by late March 2012, which Change.org told the Los Angeles Times was the biggest petition the site had ever seen, with up to 1,000 signatures arriving per minute[3]. A second thread of activity ran on 4chan's /pol/ board, which treated the case as a target for trolling. A user calling themselves "Klanklannon" claimed to have hacked Martin's email and social media and posted the credentials to Stormfront[6]. The following year, /pol/ users dialed into a Skype witness testimony during Zimmerman's trial after a prosecutor's username was shown on live TV[6]. ## How It Spread The hashtag #TrayvonMartin went into wide circulation on March 19, 2012 after Mike Tyson, Anderson Cooper, Spike Lee, Michael Moore and Nancy Grace all posted about the case[6]. The same day, digital strategist Daniel Maree published a blog post and a YouTube video calling on people to wear hoodies and march on the United Nations in New York on March 21[8]. Several hundred people showed up to that first Million Hoodie March, and copycat rallies ran in Philadelphia on March 23 and in Los Angeles and Iowa on March 26[6]. Two big flashpoints followed. On March 22, Fox News host Geraldo Rivera tweeted that Martin's hoodie was "as much responsible for [his] death as George Zimmerman" and then repeated the claim on Fox & Friends the next morning[4]. The response produced the single-topic Tumblr "Geraldo in a Hoodie," a Buzzfeed piece pointing out that Fox News was selling a hooded sweatshirt in its online store, and the quiet disappearance of that sweatshirt from the shop within hours[5]. On March 23, LeBron James posted a photo of the Miami Heat with their hoods up on Twitter, which pushed the hashtag's volume to its peak the next day[9]. Pew Research later found that 28% of tweets between March 17 and March 28 contained messages of outrage or calls for justice[6]. The case kept producing viral moments after that first wave. On March 23 Spike Lee retweeted an address claimed to be Zimmerman's that actually belonged to an unrelated elderly couple named David and Elaine McClain, who were forced to leave their home after receiving a bag of Skittles in the mail; Lee publicly apologized on March 28[6]. On March 29 Gawker broke the story that a self-described white supremacist calling themselves "Klanklannon" had hacked Martin's email and posted the credentials to Stormfront[10]. In April 2012 the "Trayvoning" photo fad surfaced, in which people posed on the ground with Skittles and an iced tea; Clutch Magazine's "Trayvoning: This Trend Has to Stop" piece on May 17 kicked off wider coverage and the shutdown of the associated Facebook pages[6]. Zimmerman was acquitted on July 13, 2013, which triggered a new round of protests, the Bob Seay "I am not Trayvon Martin" Facebook post that spawned the "We Are Not Trayvon Martin" Tumblr, and the Juror B37 book-deal backlash that collapsed within a day[6]. ## How to Use Participation in the online campaigns typically meant one of three gestures: signing the Change.org petition, posting a photo of yourself in a hoodie to Twitter or Tumblr with the hashtag #MillionHoodies or #WeAreTrayvonMartin, or sharing a short statement about personal experience with racial profiling to blogs like "I Am Trayvon Martin" and later "We Are Not Trayvon Martin"[1]. Attending a Million Hoodie March in person, which started in Manhattan on March 21, 2012 and spread to Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Iowa within a week, was the offline version of the same gesture[6]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Trayvon Martin's Death? It refers to the February 26, 2012 fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida, and the online activism and controversies that followed[7]. ### Where did Trayvon Martin's Death come from? The incident happened in a gated community in Sanford, Florida. The online story began when Martin's parents launched a Change.org petition on March 8, 2012 after local police declined to charge Zimmerman[7]. ### What does Trayvon Martin's Death mean? The case became shorthand for debates over racial profiling, Florida's Stand Your Ground law, and gun control, with the hoodie, Skittles and iced tea serving as recurring protest symbols[4]. ### How do you use Trayvon Martin's Death? Participants typically signed the Change.org petition, joined the #MillionHoodies or #WeAreTrayvonMartin hashtags with hoodie selfies, or marched in a local Million Hoodie March rally[8]. ### Is Trayvon Martin's Death still popular? The case is classic reference material for discussions of Black Lives Matter and hashtag activism, with its symbols still cited in protest coverage years later[1]. ### How big did the Change.org petition get? By March 26, 2012 the petition had collected 2.2 million signatures, which Change.org told the Los Angeles Times was the largest in the site's history, with as many as 1,000 signatures arriving per minute[3]. ### What was the Million Hoodie March? A rally organized by digital strategist Daniel Maree in Manhattan on March 21, 2012, where several hundred people wore hoodies to protest Martin's shooting; similar rallies ran in Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Iowa within the next week[6]. ### What did Geraldo Rivera say about the hoodie? On March 22 and 23, 2012, Rivera argued on Twitter, Fox News Latino and Fox & Friends that Martin's hoodie was partly to blame for his death because it made him look like a "hoodlum"; he apologized within days[4]. ### What was Trayvoning? A disturbing photo fad that surfaced in April 2012, in which people posed lying on the ground with a bag of Skittles and an iced tea; Clutch Magazine's May 17 piece calling for it to stop pushed the fad into wider coverage and the shutdown of associated Facebook pages[6]. ### What happened with Spike Lee's tweet? On March 23, 2012 Spike Lee retweeted an address claimed to belong to George Zimmerman that actually belonged to unrelated elderly couple David and Elaine McClain; the couple received a bag of Skittles in the mail and were forced to leave their home, and Lee publicly apologized on March 28[6]. ### What was the verdict in Zimmerman's trial? On July 13, 2013, a jury found George Zimmerman not guilty of second-degree murder and manslaughter after about 16 hours of deliberation[6]. ## References 1. [https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2012/0326/Trayvon-Martin-case-Is-hoodie-a-symbol-of-menace-or-desire-for-justice]() 2. [https://abcnews.go.com/US/celebrity-tweets-petitions-spur-trayvon-martin-shooting-probe/story?id=15970224]() 3. [https://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-trayvon-martin-case-poll-petition-20120326,0,2178466.story]() 4. [http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2012/03/23/trayvon-martins-hoodie-and-george-zimmerman-share-blame/]() 5. [https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/fox-news-irresponsibly-selling-dangerous-hoodies]() 6. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/trayvon-martins-death]() 7. [https://www.change.org/petitions/prosecute-the-killer-of-our-son-17-year-old-trayvon-martin]() 8. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPDNic9mbC0]() 9. [http://www.journalism.org/commentary_backgrounder/special_report_how_blogs_twitter_and_mainstream_media_have_handled_trayvon_m]() 10. [http://gawker.com/5897485/white-supremacist-hacks-trayvon-martins-email-account-leaks-messages-online]() 11. [http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/03/what-happened-trayvon-martin-explained]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/trayvon-martins-death Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library