Rest in Power

Book excerpt: Trayvon Martin’s parents take readers beyond the news cycle with an account only they could give: the intimate story of a tragically foreshortened life and the rise of a movement. “A reminder—not only of Trayvon’s life and death but of the vulnerability of black lives in a country that still needs to be reminded they matter.”—USA Today Now a docuseries on the Paramount Network produced by Shawn Carter Years after his tragic death, Trayvon Martin’s name is still evoked every day. He has become a symbol of social justice activism, as has his hauntingly familiar image: the photo of a child still in the process of becoming a young man, wearing a hoodie and gazing silently at the camera. But who was Trayvon Martin, before he became, in death, an icon? And how did one black child’s death on a dark, rainy street in a small Florida town become the match that lit a civil rights crusade? Rest in Power, told through the compelling alternating narratives of his parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, answers those questions from the most intimate of sources. The book takes us beyond the news cycle and familiar images to give the account that only his parents can offer: the story of the beautiful and complex child they lost, the cruel unresponsiveness of the police and the hostility of the legal system, and an inspiring journey from grief and pain to power, and from tragedy and senselessness to purpose.