Road leading to Trayvon Martin’s high school now named after him

A portion of a road leading to the Florida high school that Trayvon Martin attended has been renamed to honor the teenager whose death sparked a nationwide reckoning over police brutality and helped inspire the Black Lives Matter movement.

“Trayvon Martin Avenue,” located outside of Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High, was named in a Thursday ceremony. Martin was an 11th-grade student at the school when he was killed while walking through a neighborhood.

Adam Kosnitzky, the principal of the high school, said Thursday that “Our students every morning will come out here and see the road that bears Trayvon’s name. His name will continue forever,” The Associated Press reported.

Martin was fatally shot in 2012 by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer. Zimmerman was later acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter. 

The resolution to rename the road was approved unanimously by the Miami-Dade County Commission last month.

“He was beloved by his family, friends, and other members of his community and has been described as a peaceful, respectful, laid back, and positive person; and, in some ways, Trayvon Martin was a typical teenager who enjoyed playing video games, listening to music, watching movies, and talking and texting on the phone,” read the resolution.

The Thursday ceremony was attended by a group of area officials as well as Martin’s parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, the Miami Herald reported.

Tracy Martin told the crowd that trauma has the power to unify that “we often don’t realize the magnitude of.” Fulton said that her son’s death served as an awakening around the world.

“This wasn’t about Trayvon,” she said. “Trayvon was the vessel.”