TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The college and high school students arranged themselves in the colonial-style chairs and on the green carpet, a portrait of the state’s Old Capitol building above them, as they exchanged stories about their lives and the travails of the “black and brown youth” in Florida.
One young woman whose parents were both drug addicts spoke about how she had defied the odds; she will graduate from college next year. A young man mentioned that he was one of the few in his family who had not ended up in prison. Another talked about his years in and out of homeless shelters while he was growing up in Miami.
Only a stone’s throw away, beyond the two receptionists in front of them, behind an imposing white door, was the office of the person they hoped would hear them and respond with action: Florida’s Republican governor, Rick Scott.
On July 16, three days after George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, the Dream Defenders, as they are called, streamed into the governor’s suite to hold a sit-in. Encamped there since then, they are demanding changes to Florida’s self-defense laws, specifically, the Stand Your Ground provision, and in the way minorities are treated in the state’s schools and on the streets. They have vowed to stay until a special legislative session is called on their issues.
