In a message posted on her website, Beyonce also recalled 14-year-old Till’s killing in 1955. “We must fight for Trayvon the same way the generation before us fought for Emmett Till,” she wrote.
The protests came a day after President Barack Obama publicly identified with Martin and the deep frustrations felt among African-Americans over the verdict. “Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago,” Obama said.
The president’s remarks — his most expansive since a Florida jury’s decision on July 13 to acquit neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman — were applauded by many at Saturday’s vigils.
“I felt that in the past he has been hesitant and tried to ride the line and not offend anyone,” Sonya Olange, a 45-year-old mother of two at the Manhattan rally, told AFP.
“But his job as president is to set the tone for changing these laws and, as a black man, he did what he should have done.”
The 29-year-old Zimmerman, who said he acted in self defense, fatally shot Martin in the chest on the rainy night of February 26, 2012, during an altercation in a gated community in Sanford, Florida.
A jury of six women cleared him of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges.
“George Zimmerman started the fight and George Zimmerman ended the fight,” Martin’s mother said in New York. “Today it was my son. Tomorrow it might be yours.”
The vigils outside court houses and government buildings were organized to maintain public pressure for a federal civil rights investigation into the killing.
Organizers are targeting “Stand Your Ground” laws like Florida’s, which assert that citizens can use lethal force — rather than retreat — if they sense their lives are at risk.
“We are not going to be silent, we’ll stand up for what’s right, we’ll stand up for justice,” Sharpton said at the New York rally.
Obama did not comment directly on the Florida verdict but he called for a review of the controversial state self-defense laws.
“I just ask people to consider if Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk?” Obama said.
The teen’s parents said they were “deeply honored and moved” by Obama identifying himself with Trayvon. “This is a beautiful tribute to our boy,” they said in a statement.
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