Celebrities like Beyonce and Rihanna are using social media to show their support for Trayvon Martin’s family and disappointment that George Zimmerman was found not guilty for any charges in the fatal shooting of the 17-year-old African-American.
Beyonce had already shown her support for Trayvon by participating in the Instagram “blackout,” where users posted pictures of black boxes and some even made the black box their profile photo.
After the verdict was announced Saturday night, Queen Bey couldn’t go on with her performance as if nothing had changed.
Her concert kicked off only a few minutes after the Zimmerman verdict caught widespread media attention and everyone took to social media to react, discuss the decision, and try to find comfort.
For Beyonce, social media wasn’t enough, so at the top of her show she announced that she wanted a moment of silence for Trayvon Martin.
“I’d like to have a moment of silence for Trayvon,” the R&B songstress said.
When the moment of silence began, the lights dimmed and left the massive crowd in an overwhelming darkness only to be brought back to life by a powerful rendition of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You,” dedicated to the deceased teenager.
Baddie Bey belted out the chorus of the song while the diverse crowd cheered her on at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn.
She then smoothly transitioned into “Halo,” which she also dedicated to Martin.
Meanwhile, Rihanna used Instagram to express her frustration with the verdict and anger with the system.
Rihanna also took part in the Instagram blackout and changed her profile picture to a black box.
On Sunday morning, she explained why it was especially heartbreaking for her to know that Zimmerman will walk free.
“A child was gunned down for no reason!” She wrote. “And nothing about that sounds like murder? My baby brother is 17, this rocked my whole shit! #thesystemisandhasalwaysbeenphucked.”
The emotional post came along with a picture of Trayvon and received well over 340,000 likes.
RiRi wasn’t the only one who was fed up with the broken system either.
Protests took place all across the country.
Marches formed in many major cities from downtown Atlanta to the boroughs of New York and while these protests remained peaceful it was a different story out on the West Coast.
Oakland, Calif., has always been extremely charged when it comes to racial issues within the legal system and while the protests started out peacefully a few citizens were far too outraged to keep their composure.
People began smashing windows, tagging public property with graffiti, burning flags in the street and other forms of vandalism.
While the police would have preferred no violence at all, the vandalism was kept to a minimum and no arrests had to be made.
