By Barbara Liston
ORLANDO, Fla., Aug 23 (Reuters) – The shooting of unarmed
black teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida last year shook the
foundations of Phillip Agnew’s comfortable life selling erectile
dysfunction drugs and anti-depressants.
Outraged at police who cited Florida’s “Stand Your Ground”
self-defense law as a reason not to arrest neighborhood watch
volunteer George Zimmerman, Agnew felt compelled to make a stand
of his own.
The 28-year-old from Miami led the longest sit-in in memory
at the Florida Capitol this summer. On Wednesday he will step up
to the microphone in Washington to add his voice to those of
President Barack Obama, former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy
Carter, and others commemorating the 50th anniversary of Martin
Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
Now a salaried field organizer for the Service Employees
International Union, Agnew represents a generation of civil
rights activism half a century removed from King’s iconic
address.
Martin’s killing prompted Agnew and many others to question
whether equal justice in the United States was still only a
dream.
The group he helped start, which calls itself the Dream
Defenders, camped for 31 days in the office of Governor Rick
Scott to protest Zimmerman’s acquittal in July.
“We think the political landscape of America is turning very
much in favor of young people now,” Agnew told Reuters. “We want
people to come together and talk about the future of Florida.”
Many people blamed Zimmerman’s acquittal on the Stand Your
Ground law, under which people in fear of their lives no longer
must try to retreat before defending themselves with potentially
lethal force.
As the protest progressed, the Dream Defenders broadened
their platform to include other issues, including educational
opportunity and drug incarceration rates.
The Dream Defenders’ protest surpassed by two weeks the 2011
pro-union sit-in at the Wisconsin Capitol, which was cut off by
court order.
The group, which has established chapters on six of
Florida’s major public college campuses, is positioning itself
to play a role in the 2014 midterm elections in a state that
will be pivotal in the presidential campaigns that launch soon
after.
“They planted the seeds for issues and mobilization efforts
that clearly are going to be evident in the 2014 election
cycle,” said Susan MacManus, a political science professor at
the University of South Florida.
Agnew met fellow Dream Defenders founders Gabriel Pendas and
Ahmad Abuznaid a decade ago, when he was a student at Florida
A&M; University in the state capital, Tallahassee.
They got a taste of activism in 2006 while participating in
marches and a two-day student-led sit-in at then-Governor Jeb
Bush’s office over the death of another black teen, Martin Lee
Anderson, at a juvenile boot camp.
The Florida legislature subsequently closed all five state
camps.
FROM SALES TO ACTIVISM
As a child of poverty, Agnew said he felt obligated upon
graduation to use his business degree to secure a spot for
himself in the middle class, and he took a sales job with
pharmaceuticals company Eli Lilly & Co.
But his experience in the Anderson case kept tugging at his
conscience.
So within weeks of Martin’s killing, Agnew said he gave up
his $52,000 salary ($63,000 with bonuses), rented out his house
and reconnected with Pendas, who was working as a union
organizer in Miami, and Abuznaid who was vacationing in
Amsterdam after passing the Florida bar.
Agnew draws a connection between the Dream Defenders and the
anti-war and civil rights movements of two generations ago,
especially after some of the 1960s leaders such as Jesse Jackson
and Julian Bond joined them briefly in the Florida Capitol.
Bond agreed. “I think it’s fair to say that, in many, many
ways, what happened here over the last several days is very much
like what happened across the South in the days when I was a
young guy,” he told Reuters as the Dream Defenders were
decamping on Aug. 15.
Despite ending the sit-in, Agnew said the Dream Defenders
had accomplished some of their goals, including getting the
speaker of Florida’s House of Representatives to call for a
committee hearing next month on the Stand Your Ground law.
He said it was fitting that the 50th anniversary of King’s
speech was only a few days away.
“There are many comparisons to be made between today and
yesterday,” he said. “This is the same struggle, the same fight,
the same eagerness to do something about it. And we’re lucky to
have these spirited young people involved in it.”
(Additional reporting by Bill Cotterell in Tallahassee; Editing
by David Adams and Lisa Von Ahn)
