The mother of slain African-American teenager Trayvon Martin has officially endorsed Hillary Clinton for president.
In her CNN op-ed, Sybrina Fulton says her son lost his life because of guns, and because of that, “we simply can’t afford to elect a Republican who refuses to even acknowledge the problem of senseless gun violence.”
“The Republican candidates have vowed to roll back all of these sensible measures [taken by President Obama]. And many of them have shown open contempt for the simple notion that Black Lives Matter,” Fulton argues.
Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner, will uphold President Obama’s recent executive actions in addition to going even further, according to Fulton.
“Her plan focuses on reforms that would help keep more guns out of the hands of criminals. It would finally close the gun show loophole, and the outrageous provision that allowed someone with an arrest record to buy the gun used to shoot and kill nine parishioners at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina,” Fulton said.
Fulton and Clinton met in November in Chicago, where Fulton says she “found a mother and a grandmother” who deeply understood the loss of her son.
Martin was shot to death in February 2012 when he was 17 years old by George Zimmerman. Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, was eventually acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter in July 2013. Martin’s death has been one of the many high-profile deaths of African Americans that have become part of the Black Lives Matter movement and push for new gun control measures over the years.
