Sanford decision to move Trayvon Martin memorial causes uproar in black community

By Joy-Ann Reid, The Grio

The decision to move a memorial to slain Miami teen Trayvon Martin was accompanied by a brief statement emailed to the media Monday.

“In an effort to protect and preserve the remaining Trayvon Martin curbside memorial items, and after communicating with representatives of Trayvon Martin’s family,” the statement read, “Sanford City Manager, Norton Bonaparte announced that the curbside memorial site items placed outside the entrance of the Retreat at Twin Lakes Subdivision in Sanford have been taken to the Sanford Museum as of 2:30 pm today by city staff. All the items retrieved have been carefully handled and inventoried.”

However, representatives for Martin’s family, and leaders of Sanford’s African-American community, say key parts of that statement are not true.

Natalie Jackson, an attorney for Martin’s parents, say the family was not consulted. And Francis Oliver, who runs the black history museum in Sanford’s Goldsboro neighborhood, says the city initially asked to move the memorial there — even though Martin was killed in a mixed-race neighborhood in the city, across from an elementary school.

According to Oliver, the Retreat at Twin Lakes homeowner’s association had been pushing to have the makeshift memorial, comprised of a cross, surrounded by cards, stuffed animals and flowers moved, almost from the moment she and other members of Sanford’s black community began to erect it. “They have been calling the city, they have been calling lawyers and different people,” Oliver told TheGrio.

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