Trayvon Quotes & Sayings

Trayvon Martin did not need to die. — Henry Rollins

My main message is to the parents of Trayvon Martin. You know, if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon. — Barack Obama

I do not believe that Darren Wilson should've been charged, but Brown should not have lost his life. Brown and Trayvon Martin should've gotten their butts kicked badly. They should've been handled physically, but they should not have been killed. — Niger Innis

If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon. — Barack Obama

Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago. — Barack Obama

Over the course of the years, I've learned [that] fashion is a fascinating business about selling magic. It is done on the backs of our optimism and our insecurity. It is as much psychology as commerce. But I've also learned that every day we make split second decisions about people based on their attire and those decisions can have powerful implications - see the story of Trayvon Martin and his hoodie. It's important for us to understand how fashion works and how we connect to it. — Robin Givhan

Our current politics tell you that should you fall victim to such an assault and lose your body, it must somehow be your fault. Trayvon Martin's hoodie got him killed. Jordan Davis's loud music did the same. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago. And when you think about why, in the African American community at least, there's a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it's important to recognize that the African American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn't go away. — Barack Obama

The cure for the Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice and Eric Garner tragedies is not education or exposure. It's the Gospel. So, finally, I'M ENCOURAGED because the Gospel gives mankind hope, — Benjamin Watson

As African-Americans, that's what's being played fast and loose with, our citizenship. When you have the Trayvon Martins and the Michael Browns being shot and killed, it's because, on a certain level, there is a kind of mutability in the understanding of citizenship around the black body. — Claudia Rankine

So that America might justify itself, the story of a black body's destruction must always begin with his or her error, real or imagined - with Eric Garner's anger, with Trayvon Martin's mythical words ("You are gonna die tonight"), with Sean Bell's mistake of running with the wrong crowd, with me standing too close to the small-eyed boy pulling out. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

Michael Brown happened to be black. Trayvon Martin happened to be black. Eric Garner was a black man. So this pattern continues over and over. — William Lacy Clay Jr.

In this day and age where humanity is lost by so many, can a young, black child of God be put on trial for his very own murder."
~Elissa Gabrielle — Elissa Gabrielle

The fact is, in the minds of many, Trayvon Martin received the appropriate punishment for a true crime: He was black, male and dared to walk outside. In life, young Trayvon was just a teenager; in death, he has been transformed into a scary, lurking, suspicious, prone-to-violence spook. — Henry Rollins

Trayvon Martin, at the most, seems only to have been guilty of being himself. — Aberjhani

Some problems we share as women, some we do not. You fear your children will grow up to join the patriarchy and testify against you; we fear our children will be dragged from a car and shot down in the street, and you will turn your backs on the reasons they are dying. — Audre Lorde

When you have incidences like the Trayvon Martin verdict, the erosion of certain fundamental rights like voting, it just reminds us that we're always one Supreme Court justice vote away from losing the progress that has been made. — Terri Sewell

I was reading the paper and saw a cartoon with Ray Kelly frisking Obama, and I was like "Wait, what's happening?" so I Googled it. For everything Obama stands for and the things he's said in the past in his books, especially with the Trayvon Martin thing - and I'm not sure if he [made his comments on Trayvon] because he was asked a question and he was trying to be diplomatic and neutral - that can't happen. — Adepero Oduye

The vision preached by my father a half-century ago was that his four little children would no longer live in a nation where they would judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. However, sadly, the tears of Trayvon Martin's mother and father remind us that, far too frequently, the color of one's skin remains a license to profile, to arrest and to even murder with no regard for the content of one's character. — Martin Luther King III

The irony of American history is the tendency of good white Americanas to presume racial innocence. Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege.
In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America. — Tim Wise

I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin's death as George Zimmerman was. — Geraldo Rivera

May God bless Trayvon Martin's soul, his family. — Bobby Rush

I do not long for those days. I have no desire to make you "tough" or "street," perhaps because any "toughness" I garnered came reluctantly. I think I was always, somehow, aware of the price. I think I somehow knew that a third of my brain should have been concerned with more beautiful things. I think I felt that something out there, some force, nameless and vast, had robbed me of ... what? Time? Experience? I think you know something of what that third could have done, and I think that is why you may feel the need for escape even more than I did. You have seen all the wonderful life up above the tree-line, yet you understand that there is no real distance between you and Trayvon Martin, and thus Trayvon Martin must terrify you in a way that he could never terrify me. You have seen so much more of all that is lost when they destroy your body. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

If [George] Zimmerman had been arrested for domestic violence, Trayvon Martin might still be alive. — Gloria Steinem