Trayvon Martin Basketball Tournament Organized To Combat Racism

A basketball tournament that hopes to fight racism and pay tribute to the life of Trayvon Martin is being held through the end of the summer in Bensonhurst. The New York Daily News is reporting that the “Trayvon Martin Basketball Tournament” also partly serves as a protest to the verdict that found George Zimmerman not guilty of killing Martin.

The tournament was put together by Maurice Ballard, an activist who chose to host the event in Bensonhurst in part because of the Yusef Hawkins killing in 1989 which saw a white mob kill a black teenager (although, as our commenters have noted in the past, it may not have been a “white mob” or as racially motivated as previously believed).

“Racism may never get cured,” Ballard told the Daily News. “But Bensonhurst is the place where we can start to make a difference.”

Some of the children participating in the tournament showed up in hoodies as a symbolic show of support for Martin. The Daily News described the layout of the tournament as well as the event’s other goal, which is racial integration:

The tournament brings together over 300 kids from the Marlboro and Coney Island Houses each week for the round-robin tournament at Scarangella Park.

Winning isn’t everything — or even the only thing — at this tourney. The goal, said Ballard, is to bring together a diverse, yet still self-segregated, community that’s 34% Asians, 13% Latino, 1% black, and the rest white.

“This is really about keeping Trayvon’s memory alive,” he said.

Here is the information on the tournament provided by the Daily News.

Trayvon Martin Basketball Tournament, Scarangella Park, Stillwell Ave., between Avenues U and V, Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays through Aug. 31, 4:30 to 7 p.m., for information, call (646) 770-5764 .