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The Amnesty report goes on to state that “20% of blacks who have been executed were convicted by all-white juries.”  This is particularly interesting to note in the Trayvon Martin murder case, in which a jury of all white women plus one Hispanic woman decided the fate of the murderer.

How many of those jurors would have said, “not guilty” if George had killed their child in cold blood because George decided their son deserved to be shot with no trial, judge or jury?

So, as I sit here, I am thinking about the question posed by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his pivotal book, Where Do We Go From Here?

I think about my law school advisor, Judge A. Leon Higginbotham, who spoke passionately about being one of a few black students to enter Yale Law School in 1949 and how the black custodian looked up and said, “I worked my whole life to see you get here.” And I look at what is happening to his legacy and that of Thurgood Marshall and their peers.

And I think about the thirteen years I have worked tirelessly as a mother to educate, love, cherish and raise my three amazing black boys with my amazingly brilliant, caring, sensitive, loving husband, also a black man who could still easily be mistaken as worthy of shooting because he looks suspicious to some stranger on the street.

And I wonder, “Where do we go from here? Yes, anger will rise for a moment. Despair may take hold for a day. But, what then?

I wonder, “Will a day ever truly come when black Americans will ever have rights that white and all other races will ever be bound to respect just because we are fellow human beings?”

I don’t want just a temporary outcry, or more lip service by television pundits or political posturing.  I want what every mother wants – what Trayvon Martin’s parents wanted – for my children to be safe I want to not have to stay up at night wondering if they might fall prey to racial profiling or stereotyping that could hurt their hearts or, worse yet, take freedom or their very lives.

I want, somehow, in 2013 for Martin Luther King Jr.’s words said 50 years ago at the March on Washington finally to be true, “that [our children] would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

As I sit in the safety of my home writing this, my prayers are with the family of Trayvon Martin.  But my mind is on what comes next.  I can’t let my sons be next sacrifices on the altar of a “color-blind” idealism that pervades my circle of well-meaning friends.  This verdict tells me that its time for us to resume the struggle that Dred Scott and so many others began so long ago.  America must see all of its citizen’s lives as valuable and no justice system can be considered just when sons of African descent can be so easily dismissed.

Read: Rev. Al Sharpton: ‘We’re Not Having a Fit, We’re Having a Movement’

Frances Cudjoe Waters is an Associate Pastor in the United Methodist Church, Founder and CTO (Chief Transformation Officer) of BTransformed Media Ministry and an Educational Consultant. She resides happily in Dallas, TX with her wonderful husband of 16 years and their three amazing sons.

Zimmerman Verdict – Where Do We Go From Here?  was originally published on elev8.com

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