Opinion
NAACP continues to seek for federal charges in the wake of Trayvon Martin’s murderer’s acquital
African American leaders at an NAACP Protest Rally for Trayvon Martin held early 2012. PHOTO/File
(Reuters) – The not guilty verdict in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin has reshaped a meeting of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) where delegates are calling for federal charges after a trial they say failed to serve justice.
NAACP members were gathering for the annual convention in Orlando, Florida of the African American organization dedicated to civil rights when the jury issued its decision on Saturday night in the nearby town of Sanford.
The verdict by a jury of almost all-white six women in the trial of former neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman reverberated around the country and rocked the convention of 3,000 national, state and local officers and members.
Speeches were hastily re-written, agendas altered and conversation in the halls re-focused.
“It was like an atomic bomb dropped,” said Michael Edwards, 55, a union official and NAACP member from St. Louis.
More than 800,000 people have signed an online petition of the NAACP asking U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to file civil rights charges against Zimmerman, the association says.
Holder told the convention on Tuesday that ‘Stand Your Ground’ self-defense laws now employed in 30 states should be reconsidered because they “senselessly expand the concept of self-defense and sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods.”
