Trayvon Martin

In January 2017, Martin's parents (under Penguin Random House) published a book about Martin's life and death entitled Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin.

On July 19, 2014, Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles was scheduled to hold a "peace walk and peace talk" hosted by Martin's parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin. On May 13, 2017, Martin posthumously received a bachelor's degree in aeronautical science from Florida Memorial University "in honor of the steps he took during his young life toward becoming a pilot." Martin's parent accepted the award for their son.

Zimmerman was injured during the encounter and claimed he had been defending himself; he was not charged at the time. The police said there was no evidence to refute his claim of self-defense, and that Florida's stand your ground law prohibited them from arresting or charging him. After national media focused on the incident, Zimmerman was eventually charged and tried, but the jury acquitted him of second-degree murder and manslaughter in July 2013.

As Martin was returning from the store to the Twin Lakes neighborhood, George Zimmerman, a volunteer Neighborhood Watch person, spotted Martin, who was 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m) tall and weighed 158 pounds (72 kg) at the time of his death. Zimmerman called Sanford police to report Martin, who he said appeared "suspicious". There was an altercation between the two individuals in which Zimmerman shot Martin, killing him. Zimmerman claimed self-defense and was eventually charged in Martin's death. On June 10, 2013, Zimmerman's trial began in Sanford and on July 13, a jury acquitted him of second-degree murder and of manslaughter charges.

Following Martin's death, rallies, marches and protests were held across the nation. In March 2012, hundreds of students at his high school held a walkout in support of him. An online petition calling for a full investigation and prosecution of Zimmerman garnered 2.2 million signatures. Also in March, the media coverage surrounding Martin's death became the first story of 2012 to be featured more than the presidential race, which was underway at the time. A national debate about racial profiling and 'stand your ground' laws ensued. The governor of Florida appointed a task force to examine the state's self-defense laws. Martin's life was scrutinized by the media and bloggers. The name Trayvon was tweeted more than two million times in the 30 days following the shooting. More than 1,000 people attended the viewing of his remains the day before his funeral, which was held on March 3, 2012 in Miami, Florida. He was buried in Dade-Memorial Park (North), in Miami. A memorial was dedicated to Martin at the Goldsboro Westside Historical Museum, a black history museum in Sanford in July 2013.

Martin, known on Twitter by the nickname "Slimm", posted thousands of tweets over a period of months, according to the Miami Herald. Martin tweeted his last message two days before he was shot in February 2012. According to the Herald, Martin's digital footprint portrayed him as having a sense of humor and a preoccupation with girls, and sometimes using profanity when discussing sex in his tweets. Martin also enjoyed making jokes on Twitter about street culture, and posted YouTube excerpts from films like Friday and Next Friday, which both made fun of street culture. Martin liked rap music and tweeted about Tupac Shakur, DMX and Mystikal. He often quoted explicit song lyrics in his tweets. Martin's postings sometimes reflected a personal nature with references to Krispy Kreme doughnuts, ice cream, movies and all-night study sessions. The Miami Herald also reported that Martin was not happy at Krop High School: in one of his tweets he had written, "WULD I MISS KROP?? HELL NAW FUK DA SKOOL, FUK DA LUNCH, ND MOST OF ALL FUK DA FACULTY..... IMA MISS SUM OF DA STUDENTS, MAINLY DA BABIES ;)"

At a White House press conference in March, President Obama was asked about the Martin shooting, and said, "If I had a son he would look like Trayvon and I think they [his parents] are right to expect that all of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves." Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate at the time, said that a full inquiry was needed so that "justice could be carried out with impartiality and integrity". The Project for Excellence in Journalism reported in March that media coverage of the Martin case had become the first news story in 2012 to be reported on more than the presidential race.

When Martin started high school, his goal of playing professional football was put aside in favor of a career working with airplanes. Martin attended Carol City High School in Miami Gardens for his freshman year and most of his sophomore year, before he transferred to Krop High School in north Miami-Dade in 2011. While in his first year at Carol City, Martin attended classes in the mornings at the high school and then went to George T. Baker Aviation School for the rest of his school day. Martin's ninth-grade teacher, who taught him, three classes of Aerospace Technology at the Baker Aviation School, said he was a normal student, well-behaved, who passed all his classes. According to another teacher at Carol City, math was his favorite subject, and she said she never saw Martin show disrespect. Some students at Carol City compared Martin's death to that of Emmett Till, one of the nation's most infamous civil rights cases.

Martin's mother had him transferred to Dr. Michael M. Krop High School, which has approximately 2,700 students, for his junior year. Fulton said that her son had average performance in school, and she transferred him because she thought Krop High School was better and she wanted a different environment for him. While a student at Dr. Michael M. Krop High School, Martin had behavioral issues. At the time of the shooting, he was serving a ten-day suspension for having a marijuana pipe and an empty bag containing marijuana residue. He had been suspended twice before, for tardiness and truancy and marking up a door with graffiti. The suspension for graffiti was in October 2011, when Martin was observed by a school police officer on a security camera "hiding and being suspicious" in a restricted area of the school. According to the officer, he later observed Martin marking up a door with "W.T.F." ("what the fuck?"). When his backpack was searched the next day by a Miami-Dade School Police officer, looking for the graffiti marker, the officer found a dozen pieces of women's jewelry, a watch and a screwdriver that was described by the school police officer as a burglary tool. The jewelry found in his backpack included silver wedding bands and earrings with diamonds. When Martin was asked by the officer if the jewelry belonged to his family or a girlfriend, he said a friend had given it to him. When asked for the name of the friend, Martin declined to provide it. The school police impounded the jewelry and sent photographs of it to detectives at Miami-Dade to investigate it further. No evidence ever surfaced at that time that the jewelry was stolen. An attorney for Martin's family said the parents did not know about the jewelry or screwdriver. Martin was not charged with any crime related to these suspensions and did not have a juvenile record.

Martin had wanted to fly or repair airplanes and in mid-2009, enrolled in "Experience Aviation", a seven-week program in Opa-locka, Florida, run by award-winning aviator Barrington Irving. According to Irving, Martin was a polite youth "[who] reminded me of myself because I had a strong interest in football until I fell in love with aviation." After Martin graduated from the program, he spent the next summer as a volunteer, helping out new students in the aviation program. According to his parents, Martin had hoped to attend the University of Miami or Florida A&M University.

Trayvon Benjamin Martin (February 5, 1995 – February 26, 2012) was a 17-year-old African-American teenager from Miami Gardens, Florida, who was fatally shot in Sanford, Florida by George Zimmerman. Martin had gone with his father on a visit to his father's fiancée at her townhouse at The Retreat at Twin Lakes in Sanford. On the evening of February 26, Martin was walking back alone to the fiancée's house from a nearby convenience store. Zimmerman, a member of the community watch, saw Martin and reported him to the Sanford Police as suspicious. Several minutes later, there was an altercation and Zimmerman fatally shot Martin in the chest.

Martin was born in 1995 in Miami, Florida, to Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, who divorced in 1999. At the time of the shooting, Fulton was a program coordinator for the Miami Dade Housing Authority, and Tracy Martin was a truck driver; they lived near each other in Miami Gardens. Martin's older maternal half-brother, Jahavaris Fulton, was a college student at the time (who would later testify in the Zimmerman trial).

Politicians, celebrities, musicians, civil rights leaders, and citizens all expressed their opinions on every form of media following the acquittal of Zimmerman. Four days after the acquittal, a group calling themselves the Dream Defenders, began a sit-in at the Florida State Capitol to force a special legislative session on Florida's stand your ground law. After 31 days, their occupation of the Capitol ended without a special session being called. A group of Martin supporters walked from Jacksonville, Florida to Sanford to highlight what they believed were injustices concerning Florida's stand your ground law. The six-day walk was called the "Walk for Dignity", and ended with a community forum being held and a dedication of the Trayvon Martin memorial at the Goldsboro Westside Historical Museum, in Sanford. In Los Angeles, California an area of a garden at Crenshaw High School was dedicated to Martin in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech. A march was also held at the dedication to teach students how to express their First Amendment rights while standing their ground for youth Civil Rights, according to the school.