Several hundred Berkeley High School students left their classes Thursday afternoon to stage a rally calling for justice for Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old high schooler who was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, a self-appointed neighborhood watch captain in Sanford, Fla. on Feb. 26.
Students, some of them wearing hoodies with the hoods up and carrying packets of Skittles and cans of iced tea, as was Martin on the day he died, gathered at 2:45 pm in the main courtyard at BHS before marching off campus, down Allston Way to convene outside Old City Hall.
There, they were addressed first by Berkeley High student Nikko Butler, who was using a megaphone to organize and speak to the rally. Several representatives of the Nation of Islam also addressed the crowd.
BHS Principal Pasquale Scuderi, as well as several members of the school’s staff, were on hand during the demonstration.
“We want justice for Trayvon Martin because he was killed for no other reason than he was black,” said student Yakira Evans.
Maryel Norris, a teacher at Berkeley High, was holding a photograph of Martin in front of her. “It is such an afront that this vigilante is walking around after killing this baby,” she said.
The rally happened on the same day that California lawmakers donned hoodies at a Capitol press conference in Sacramento and members of the Black, Latino and Asian Pacific Islander caucuses called on the federal government to intervene in the investigation. Earlier in the day, state Sen. Curren Price (D-Inglewood) presided over the state Senate in a hoodie.
George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer, told police that Martin looked suspicious because he was hearing a hoodie.
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