When Sybrina Fulton Lost Her Son Trayvon Martin, She Jumped Into Activism. But She Never Thought She'd Run for Office.

From ELLE

Historically, women have needed to be convinced to enter politics. But since the 2016 presidential election, thousands of women announced their plans to run for public office. And we want them to win. So we're giving them a monthly example of a woman who has run. The point: You can too.

Sybrina Fulton is widely known as one of the Mothers of the Movement, a group of mothers who have lost a child to gun violence or police brutality. In 2012, she lost her son Trayvon Martin, who was an unarmed Black teenager fatally shot by George Zimmerman. His death sparked national outrage that helped motivate grassroots movements like #BlackLivesMatter, and since then, Fulton has become an advocate for gun reform and racial equality. “I felt so alone after Trayvon passed,” Fulton told ELLE.com last year. “Even though people had been shot and killed before, you do feel like you are the only one going through that pain.”

Turning her pain into action, she founded a retreat to help other mothers heal after losing a child to violence and founded the Trayvon Martin Foundation. In 2016, she campaigned with presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as a national surrogate.

Now, Fulton plans to take another step in community activism, this time running for Miami-Dade County commissioner, representing a district primarily occupied by African Americans, Latinx, and immigrant communities. “I had no clue that I would ever be running for office, but sometimes when you get fed up with things you’re like, ‘OK, I just got to do it myself,’” she shared, laughing. Here, she dives into why she decided to run and her plan to win.

I prayed about running, and I didn’t see any signs until this year. I spoke at an event in New York for Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network with other mothers on the stage, and I said, "Sometimes you have to sign petitions, sometimes you have to rally, and sometimes you have to run for office." I got a funny feeling when I said that.

About a month later, I was in Pittsburgh speaking to college students, and again, I said the same thing on the stage, "Sometimes you have to sign petitions, sometimes you have to rally, and sometimes you have to run for office," and I get this feeling again. I’m like, Oh my god, this is my sign.

I’m like everyone else. I’m fed up with what I’ve seen so far in politics, and I think I need to lend my voice to make positive change. I want to start in my own backyard. That’s why I’m running for Miami-Dade County commissioner because it’s right here. A lot of people thought that I should run for a seat that was higher, but I just want to start here and make change.

I worked at the County Commission right up until the date of the tragedy with Trayvon. I would have retired there; I had no intentions of leaving early. I want to bring more resources, more programs, and more funding to my district, which is a primarily African American area, but we also have a lot of Hispanics and people of Haitian descent. Miami-Dade County is pretty big, and right now there's a budget of $7 billion. I would make sure the funding is distributed evenly. I don’t owe anybody anything, and I don’t have to provide favors to anyone, so I just hope to be a voice for the people.

People know I am passionate about crime, but I am also passionate about transportation and employment. I want people to have good jobs. I want to make sure people have an affordable place to stay and that they’re not struggling while working full-time.

The greatest need right now is the precinct crime. When I was growing up, we had Officer Friendly in the school. Right now, a lot of the young people, their first encounter with the police is when they're arrested or being pushed around. I want to change that narrative. People have said I don’t like police officers, and that’s not true because the person who shot and killed my son was not a police officer. My dad retired from the police department here in Miami, so there's no way I could hate police officers. I just don’t like bad, crooked officers, and I like professional, service-oriented, respectful police officers. When I call 911, I want the police officer to come and help me. I don’t want to feel intimidated when I call, and I don’t want our kids to be afraid.

There's a young man I spoke with a few months ago who was stopped by the police at a traffic stop. He told me was so afraid and the officers kept accusing him and saying things like, “Well, why are you so afraid? Why are you sweating like that?” and they thought it was funny. He became so scared that he started to run, and he didn’t even do anything. On both sides, we all want our families to get home safely.

As a national advocate for gun safety, I would have more gun buy backs. We need to have seamless ways for background checks to be done, and we have to do it as a collective body. Everybody has to participate so we can try to make a change.

I’d like to think that campaigning for Hillary Clinton had an impact on all of us. She let us know that, yes, you’re going to be challenged, but at the same time, you can persevere through it. Just know what you want to do, and keep pressing on and moving forward. I believe that’s what Hillary did—she didn’t give up, she didn’t back down, she was up for a good challenge. I know a lot of times, people try to discourage us from running for office. They try to discourage us from standing up for ourselves, but I think that with enough strong people around us, we can definitely make a difference.

I’m in a circle where people know me as Trayvon’s mom, but what they don’t know is that I'm also Jahvaris Fulton’s mom. They don’t know that I have a bachelor's degree. They don’t know that I was born and raised in Miami. They don’t know I worked for the county for 20-plus years in five different departments. They don’t know these things. But in the upcoming months, I'm meeting with the residents.

I want to be their spokesperson, so I’ll be out in the community to listen to them. I’m going to knock on a lot of doors. We’re going to be out in the community, at Walmart and the library—they are going to get so sick of seeing me. But I’m really relying on a grassroots strategy and small dollar donations; I want the residents in my community to be able to buy in and listen to what I have to say. I’m a freshman politician, and I’m not buying into the business-as-usual politics. I’m going to question a lot of things, so I might not be a favorite. But guess what? I’m going to work for the people, and that’s what’s important to me.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. To learn more about Sybrina Fulton’s campaign, visit www.sybrinafulton.com.

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