Single-digit temperatures weren’t enough to keep a diverse crowd of the Ferris community from BUS-111, where activist Sybrina Fulton came to share her story and wisdom.
Fulton’s life changed in 2012 when her 17-year-old son, Trayvon Martin, was shot and killed by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman. Martin was unarmed. One year later, a jury found Zimmerman not guilty.
Martin’s murder and Zimmerman’s acquittal sparked the Black Lives Matter movement and sent Fulton into a life dedicated to racial equality and gun reform.
“When my son got shot down, I stood up,” Fulton said.
She’s still her
Students, staff and alumni gathered to hear Fulton last Wednesday. The room was quick to ask the Miami resident how Michigan winter was treating her.
“Do you really want to know?” Fulton responded.
The crowd laughed together. This began a night of community, learning and respect for one another.
“We have gotten to a country now that everybody is being cancelled,” Fulton said. “Everybody is being hated on. We have to change that. We have to get back to the old school, respecting one another. I believe that’s the only reform. That’s the only amendment… Police officers need to respect young people. Young people need to respect police officers. The teachers need to respect the presidents and presidents need to respect the young people.”
One student had the chance to interview Fulton before the event opened to questions. This was forensic psychology senior and proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Inc. Imari Carl. Carl was both excited and nervous to interview her fellow soror.
“[Fulton] was really nice about it before the interview,” Carl said. “She told me [to] just be calm. She’s a regular person. Yes, she has status, but she’s still her.”
This was the environment that Fulton helped create last week. While she is a published author, non-profit organization co-founder and human being who has endured undeniable personal trauma, yet she still works to connect with people whose lives look different than hers.
Several audience members thanked Fulton for speaking and remarked that they, too, are parents of sons. They saw Martin in their own children.
Fulton also encouraged the audience to connect with one another, having everyone in attendance greet those they were sitting by. To her, creating a more just world starts locally. It starts with those right next to us.
A painful narrative
“It’s very important to heal from certain traumatic experiences in your life,” Fulton said. “People always say, ‘hurt people hurt people,’ but some hurt people help people. So, we have to change the narrative.”
When asked by the Torch how she knows if someone from the media wants to tell her and her son’s story in an honest and respectful way, Fulton said that nobody truly can. She believes that nobody besides herself can tell her own story because they lack her experience. She is now working on writing the book on Martin’s life herself.
Fulton lives a busy life between writing, speaking and working with groups like her own Circle of Mothers, a place for women who lost their children to gun violence. She still keeps space in her life to step away and focus on her personal well-being.
“I try to balance my life by making sure when I come out and speak, I look at it as work,” Fulton said. “When I go home, that’s my time to unwind. That’s my time to go to the spa, to go shopping, to go eat seafood and whatever I enjoy doing.”
Fulton is deeply familiar with balance. She is a person who endured extreme trauma at the hands of one man as well as the American justice system. Still, she remembers all of the good things she has been provided with in life.
“I really don’t focus on the negative, and that’s a lot of times what people do,” Fulton said. “When I first created my social media page, I said on my page, count your blessings and not your problems… A lot of times we overlook the things that we should be grateful for. I just look at things in a different manner. I have not always looked at things differently, but I look at things differently now.”
Fulton’s resilience resonated with the crowd. One audience member felt particularly moved, encouraging the young people in the room to look to Fulton for inspiration. Business professor and co-owner of the local Fatty C’s restaurant Kasey Thompson stood up during audience questions to express a rallying sentiment.
“This is the champion. This is the standard,” Thompson said. “You want to aspire to what you all are looking at right now.”
Thompson’s comments were met with laughter, cheers of agreement and enthusiastic applause.
“I am pleading to you,” Thompson said. “I am not saying, ‘Don’t go and listen to Drake tonight.’ I love Nicki Minaj too, don’t get it twisted. But I also keep her in her place and her purpose. When you all are looking for true aspirational queens, as we say, [the] true aspirational goal is the ability to make a difference.”
Education is essential
Fulton is a strong proponent of higher education. After receiving a bachelor’s degree from Florida Memorial University, she told her own children that they would have to go even further to earn themselves graduate degrees.
“Higher education is important because that’s something that, once you earn it, can not be taken away from you,” Fulton said. “I’m not going to say you’re smarter, but you’re more disciplined in that subject. And it’s important to be able to market yourself so you’ll be able to take care of yourself when you when you need to.”
Living in Florida, Fulton sees firsthand how education is targeted by those who wish to control the narrative of Black history.
“I believe that African Studies and Black American Black history is a part of this country’s fabric. You can not take this out, because we have been here. We are here now and we’re not going anywhere,” Fulton said.
This sentiment is echoed by Ferris’ own vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion. In a time when DEI programs are a topic of debate, Dr. David Pilgrim wants the university to be a place for national figures to come, speak and lead difficult conversations.
“In this country we like happy history, history that makes us feel good,” Pilgrim said. “That makes us feel exceptional… But if we are to be that city upon a hill, we have to have a critical and honest look at who we were as a nation and who we hope to be as a nation.”
To learn more about Fulton’s work, visit trayvonmartinfoundation.org and read her first book, “Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin.”