Internalizing the notion that “my son is your son” is perhaps the ideal goal of the struggle for racial equality in the United States. It was the impassioned plea of Trayvon Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, as she summoned all the courage she had to reflect her feelings about her son’s death at the hands of George Zimmerman at a rally in New York. And it’s this remark that serves as the cornerstone for Rest in Power.



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After a lengthy bidding war, Jay-Z’s documentary series demarcates the comprehensive nature of race and justice in America. The small-screen doc demonstrates just the racialized roadblocks that inhibit Sybrina Fulton’s claim that “my son is your son” from becoming a unifying clarion call for justice.

It’s an elaborate patchwork of interviews, vivid recordings, and critically important historical nodes, which help unearth the devastating details of Trayvon Martin’s death, the trial proceedings, and their impact on perceptions of criminal justice and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Unlike the news cycle, the documentary takes numerous steps back to cover more comprehensively the issues that informed the killing of Trayvon Martin – touching on everything from gun rights, political stakes, and the history of race in America. Like co-director Jenner Furst’s previous documentary work such as Brick City in 2009 (for Rest in Power, she works alongside Julia Willoughby Nason), the characters animate what would otherwise be a longer version of a prolonged item in the news cycle.

The rawness of Trayvon’s father Tracy Martin’s pain strikes the viewer distinctly as he speaks about the moments after he found out that his son wasn’t missing, but that he was dead. But perhaps most raw and striking are the segments when Benjamin Crump, the family’s attorney, describes the vast array of tools at his disposal to place pressure on the city to release tapes and documents and eventually press for an arrest of Zimmerman. The media frenzy we faintly recall that informed the world about Trayvon Martin wasn’t rooted in happenstance but instead represents Crump’s mastery of the public narrative.

The documentary appropriately avoids reenactments and dives straight into unearthing clips, documents and in-person interviews. But it doesn’t preoccupy itself solely with interviews with lead attorneys, Trayvon’s family, or the arresting and investigating officers. Rather, the scope of inquiry expands the consideration of who is to blame not only for Trayvon’s death, but Zimmerman’s eventual exoneration.

But in no way do the directors shy away from calling out the political elements that enabled Zimmerman to kill Trayvon under the guise of self-defense. Clips of then-Florida governor, Jeb Bush signing the “stand-your-ground” law with Marion Hammer, former Florida president of the National Rifle Association, serve as the political backdrop of the series. Stand-your-ground is what enabled Zimmerman to claim self-defense. Hammer’s inclusion in the documentary as well as the frequent and sometimes repetitive cuts to the same video of a speech by NRA chief Wayne LaPierre clearly demonstrate that Trayvon’s death was not just the culmination of fierce racial divisions. It was also the consequence of careful, well-financed lobbying and sophisticated chicanery on the part of groups like the NRA. This is just one example of the great lengths the documentarians go to provide the viewer with the most complete picture.

Rest in Power embarks on an ambitious enterprise: encapsulate the full range of systemic issues that inform the way we should perceive not just Trayvon’s death but the imbalanced relationship communities of color have with criminal justice institutions. And the series succeeds. It compels the viewer to contend with the micro- as well as macro-level impact of injustice along the dimensions of race. It treats carefully the impact of history on the present experiences of racial disparities, placing the victimized and marginalized at the center of the series’ narrative. And potentially, this piece could get the viewer closer to using Fulton’s words: “my son is your son.” In short, this docu-series should be required viewing for an education in race and criminal justice in America.

Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story starts on the Paramount Network in the US on 30 July with a UK date yet to be announced

• This article was amended on 31 July 2018. The director of the documentary, Jenner Furst, was misnamed as Hurst in an earlier version.