The bullet-hole-ridden gray hoodie Trayvon Martin wore on the night of his death could find its way into a museum. At the moment, it's still being held by the FBI as the Department of Justice decides whether or not to pursue civil rights charges against George Zimmerman.
According to The Washington Post, the currently under construction National Museum of African American History and Culture, an institute of the Smithsonian Museum, has interest in acquiring and displaying the piece.
"It became the symbolic way to talk the Trayvon Martin case. It's rare that you get one artifact that really becomes the symbol," museum director Lonnie Bunch told the paper. "Because it's such a symbol, it would allow you to talk about race in the age of Obama."
The museum's collection will already include the handcuffs that detain Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. in an incident the lead to President Obama's "beer summit."
"Trayvon will probably be a bigger history maker than the men before him, because President Obama addressed the situation," Francis Oliver, curator of the Goldsboro Historical Museum, told The Orlando Sentinel. "As soon as the president commented on it, Trayvon went down in the history books."
Al Sharpton also would like to see the hoodie preserved, saying, "The hoodie now represents an image of an urban street kid that either embraces or engages in street thug life."
But for now the FBI is in possession of the hoodie as it continues its investigation. Eventually though it will be returned to the Sanford Police Department where Martin's parents will have an opportunity to collect it and ultimately decide its fate.
Follow Miami New Times on Facebook and Twitter @MiamiNewTimes.
