An attorney for slain black teen Trayvon Martin will present a lecture on the case at the University of Georgia on Sept. 10.
Jasmine Rand, who represented the Martin family in litigation against Martin’s shooter, will discuss, “I Am Trayvon Martin: Hoodies Up — How One Case Changed a Nation and Ignited the World.”
Rand, a UGA alumna and civil rights advocate, is the founder of Rand Law LLC and an adjunct professor at the University of Miami School of Law. She is scholar-in-residence at Harvard Law School in international human rights this fall.
Martin, an unarmed black teenager, was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, a volunteer neighborhood watch member, while walking through a Sanford, Fla., neighborhood in February 2012. The shooting, and Zimmerman’s acquittal, sparked national outrage.
Rand is also an attorney for the family of Michael Brown, who was fatally shot in August 2014 by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo. A grand jury decided not to indict Officer Darren Wilson, also setting off days of protests in Ferguson and across the country.
“If you break down every aspect of the Trayvon Martin case, things that are tangible and things that are intangible, you’re dealing with civil and human rights, and so much of that is not quantifiable in a traditional sense,” Rand said in a release from UGA. “So there are certain aspects that have a very real influence on leading a movement and creating social change and changing the law that have nothing to do with black letter law.”
The lecture is scheduled for 5 p.m. in the UGA Chapel and is sponsored by UGA’s Institute for African American Studies.
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