When 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was killed in February 2012, Black folks around the country stood up to demand justice. And when his killer, George Zimmerman, was acquitted of second-degree murder a year later, the #BlackLivesMatter movement was born.
In the years since Martin’s death, several Black Americans have been killed in racially-motivated incidents, both with the police and with other civilians, and his parents Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, have continued to fight for justice.
Now, a new documentary titled Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story takes a look at Martin’s life and how his death sparked a movement that continues today.
“It’s important for viewers to understand when they embarked on this story that our film is not about events in the past,” Jenner Furst, the project’s co-director, said. “We were filming Tracy and Sybrina and we were on the road when Parkland happened. And if you look at the response to Parkland and how many people were able to mobilize around it, it’s absolutely incredible and it’s so powerful, but part of the issue here in this country is that we don’t mobilize behind the killing of Black unarmed men and women in the same way.”
Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story was co-directed by Furst and Julia Willoughby-Nason and produced by Jay-Z. In addition to Martin’s parents, the series will also feature never-before-seen home videos and interviews with Benjamin Crump, Angela Rye, Reverend Al Sharpton, Angela Davis and Carmelo Anthony, and others.
While much has been written about Martin, his parents said the documentary is going to tell the real story of their son’s life and death.
“It’s going to open up a lot of eyes,” Tracy Martin said of the new project. “It’s going to show viewers who Trayvon Martin truly was, and how we [got] from Trayvon going to the story to get a bag of skittles and an Arizona Ice Tea to being eulogized.”
Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story will premiere on July 30 at 10 PM on the Paramount Network.
