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The indignities of house arrest were small but persistent.

If Marissa Alexander ran out of milk, she couldnt dash to the grocery store to get more. She went without. If one of her kids needed a ride to a sleepover, she couldnt take them.

The ankle bracelet clamped to her left leg was a constant reminder of the ordeal that began over six years ago, when she says she picked up a gun to ward off a terrifying attack by her abusive husband.

At first, she was embarrassed by the GPS monitor, and hid it under long pants even during the sweltering summer days in Jacksonville, Florida. Later, she grew used to it.

On Jan. 27, when the bracelet was cut off, a physical and mental weight was lifted, she said. She was finally free.

Its fully liberating, Alexander said in a phone interview with The Huffington Post last week, exhaling slowly. I feel like I can live.

Alexander was thrust into the national spotlight in 2012 after she was sentenced to 20 years in prison for firing a single warning shot in the vicinity of her estranged husband, Rico Gray, during an altercation.

The incident occurred in 2010. According to Alexanders telling of the story, she was visiting with Gray nine days after giving birth to their daughter, when he saw texts on her phone that made him jealous. She said he flew into a rage, and attacked and threatened to kill her. She retrieved her gun and fired one shot to protect herself, she said.

No one was injured in the shooting, but Alexander was arrested and charged with three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, as two of Grays children were also in the home.

She was 31, a mom of three, and had no criminal history. Gray had been arrested twice before for domestic violence, and was subject to a restraining order barring him from seeing Alexander at the time of the shooting.In a sworn deposition, he admitted that he abused Alexander, and said she never pointed the gun at him.

I got five baby mamas and I put my hands on every last one of them except for one, he told investigators. The way I was with women, they was like they had to walk on eggshells around me.He later recanted that deposition, claiming he said those things to keep Alexander out of prison.

But despite Alexanders insistence that she was in fear for her life, a judge rejected her effort to invoke Floridas stand your ground law, which allows people to use deadly force if they are in danger. A jury convicted her after deliberating for 12 minutes. Under Floridas strict laws involving gun violence, she was sentenced to a mandatory minimum prison term of 20 years.

Her case stood in stark contrast to another Florida case involving self-defense. George Zimmerman, who fatally shot unarmed black teen Trayvon Martin, was acquitted after a jury concluded he was afraid for his life.

Critics of stand your ground laws said the divergent outcomes were proof of racial bias, and Alexander emerged as a symbol ofmiscarriage of justice for black women who act in self-defense.

Her conviction was eventually overturned because of an error in jury instructions. In 2014, she reached a plea deal. She ultimately served three years in prison and two years on home detention, which ended last month.

Alexanders first few days of freedom were spent with her family, she said. She took her daughter out to breakfast at Cracker Barrel before school. She visited her sisters new house and celebrated her pregnancy. A party was held in Alexanders honor, where she was surrounded by friends, family and supporters.

Marissa Alexander

I wanted to be with the people I loved the most, immediately, she said.

She is surprisingly upbeat about all she has endured.

I am obsessed with transformation, she said. I wanted to take this situation that was meant to stifle me, stagnate me, and separate me, and use it to benefit me the best way it can.

While on house arrest, she wrote a book detailing her experiences, and exercised in a home gym she had installed. She also established a nonprofit, called the Marissa Alexander Justice Project, which will provide support to domestic violence survivors who are involved in the criminal justice system.

My life was literally devastated and turned upside down by one shot, a 12-minute verdict, and a 20-year sentence, she said. It was important to me that this was not in vain, that I came out of this experience stronger.

She wants to help other women who are in the same position that she was. While she was in prison, she learned about many women who were being punished for acts taken to protect themselves, she said.

I am a servant at heart, she said. There is joy for me to be able to give back in this way.

She also wants to help change attitudes on domestic violence. Theres still a lot of judgment of women who dont leave abusers, she said.

People ask, why did you stay? she said. Nobody ever said, you were the victim and one of the choices you had was to preserve your life, and thats OK. I did the best that I could do that day. I preserved my life. I made a situation that could have been fatal not fatal, and I still was penalized.

For women who relate to her story, her message is to persevere.

My whole thing is to not be bitter, but to be better, she said. Your past does not determine the entire course of your life unless you allow it to.

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Melissa Jeltsen covers domestic violence and other issues related to womens health, safety and security. Tips? Feedback? Send an email or follow her on Twitter.

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Marissa Alexander Won't Let Her Long National Nightmare Define Her - Huffington Post

Memo: Chief told officers to harass 'cockroaches' Wichita Eagle West Virginia University sociology professor Jim Nolan compared Cross' instructions to the case of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teenager who was wearing a hoodie when he was fatally shot by Florida neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman ... and more »

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Memo: Chief told officers to harass 'cockroaches' - Wichita Eagle

Photo courtesy of Tyson Amir

Bay Area musician and activist Tyson Amir has distilled a powerful essay's worth of ideas on race and culture into a four-minute spoken word poem that brings to mind the angry power of Beat Generation poet Alan Ginsberg and contemporary musician Saul Williams. Like many artists with activists souls, dating at least back to Paul Robeson, Amir believes in art as a tool for social change. Taken from his book, "Black Boy Poems," which was released on the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Black Party, "Between Huey and Malcolm" charts a history of repression and struggle that's long from won. Ignited by a quote from Black Panthers founder Huey Newton, "I do not expect the white media to create positive black male images." Amir mentions Michael Vick and George Zimmerman among others to contrast how the definition of justice isn't colorblind. His visceral imagery and gathering rhythm feel like the banging of the drums of war. A deep unease and unsettlement takes the place of a cathartic moment.

"Dig Your Own Grave" is the persistently catchy single from alt-rock Philly band, Spin. The video features a young blonde woman traipsing around Venice beach, both seizing the moment and looking for trouble. It's a familiar image, but like well-worn tropes, it still retains a certain effect. Distorted and driven by a driving central riff that stakes ground between playful and furious, the song is undeniably a throwback to a time when straight-ahead rock reigned. The other two original songs on the EP "Meant to Rise" pulse with a similar energy that draws the listener in with nostalgia. A brooding reimagining of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" feels like a jarring departure. A rap interlude in the middle further amplifies its odd-man-out feeling. That being said, as bizarre as it is, it makes for an intriguing listen.

Openly gay pop star Jordan Alexander sets the tone for her album "The Lonely Hearts Club" with the opening track "Take Me Out Tonight." The melody is filled with lift and hope but there's also a longing that drives its dance beat. The video, directed by her mentor Jarvis Church (Nelly Furtato), puts a new spin on the title as Alexander and her friends take her wheelchair-bound grandmother for a night out on the town in a red Cadillac convertible. Shot on the streets of Toronto, it pops with a distinction the Canadian musician needs to develop a unique voice. She sings with a pleasingly airy lilt, but there's a paint-by-numbers feel to sentiments throughout the album like "I don't ever really want to be without you" but it's also refreshing to hear a line like "something tells me to stay away from pretty girls with pretty hearts" sung by a woman.

A lot of Marty McKay's upcoming album, "New York City Dreams" trades depth for a slick musical veneer. Lyrics like "my soul is a ticking time bomb" on the song "Escape" lack subtlety. As a New Yorker, there isn't much of the city evoked here, and it's perhaps in generalities that the album drowns. The Zurich-born McKay began his career as a hip-hop turntablist, so the moody rock maximalist tone here is a stark departure. "Into the Fire" is the most fully-realized track with a powerful 80s-style melodic hook, but it's the final track "Until the Pain is Gone" that glimpses at a greater artistic potential. Regret and the painful desire to rewrite the past looms large throughout the track and then a prescient voice takes over. It's British philosopher Alan Watts: "The course of time is really very much like the course of a ship in the ocean...it leaves behind it a wake just the same way that the past and our memory of the past tells us what we have done." The past determines our future as little as the ship's wake determines its continued path. It's our folly to live under the illusion that fate is anything more than a human construct.

I don't know what Steve Hussey and Jake Eddy's politics are but as I was listening to their Americana-soaked album, "The Miller Girl," I couldn't help but think that bluegrass could be a link between the two increasingly disparate Americas. As a liberal New Yorker, I recoil when I see a "Make America Great Again" hat or hear people lamenting that there isn't a white history month, but I love the sound of the banjo and songs that reference county lines. The title track evokes the small familiar communities of Thorton Wilder's "Our Town" while "Looking for Love" is driven by a catchy fiddle riff woven into a smooth melody. As sweet as the music can be, the lyrics do wear thin with simple rhythms and story lines that feel unfinished.

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On the Culture Front: Music from the Underground, Part 9 - Huffington Post

Tragically, murdered black children have become symbols representing the injustices in the world.

We know their faces: Hadiya Pendleton and the senseless nature of street violence; Laquan McDonald and police brutality; and Trayvon Martin and racial profiling.

What we forget, however, is that behind the symbol are parents who will never see their beloved daughter or son again.

Such is the fate of Sabrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, the parents of Trayvon Martin.

Trayvon was 17 when he was fatally shot by George Zimmerman, a self-styled neighborhood watchman who had stalked the teen through a gated community in Sanford, Fla.

Trayvon, who was wearing a hoodie, was unarmed and returning from a store carrying a bag of skittles and a can of fruit juice.

OPINION

The fatal encounter shed light on Floridas stand-your-ground-law, that allows persons who claim to fear for their lives to use deadly force against a perceived threat.

Trayvons death sparked protests by ordinary citizens and civil rights activists across the country. And with the help of a brilliant legal team and social media campaign, Trayvons parents were successful in getting Zimmerman charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter.

But 17 months later, a jury found Zimmerman not guilty, on all charges and he walked out of the courtroom a free man.

It was a crushing blow.

Fulton and Martin have not given up the fight to raise awareness of the flaws in the criminal justice system that led to this acquittal.

Tracy Martin, the father of Trayvon Martin, is shown speaking in St. Louis in 2014. He has collaborated with his ex-wife on a book about their son. | Scott Olson/Getty Images

They have penned a stirring book, Rest in Power: The enduring life of Trayvon Martin, published by Spiegel & Grau, that takes readers on their pursuit of justice that was a catalyst for the Black Lives Matter movement.

Who was Trayvon Martin? Ive been asked that question a million times since his death. In death, Trayvon Martin became a martyr and a symbol of racial injustice, a name and a face on T-shirts, posters and protest signs, Fulton writes.

When he was alive, of course, he was none of those things. He was simply a boy, growing into a young man, with all the wonder and promise and struggle that journey entails, she said.

The divorced couple presented a united front in the face of this horrific tragedy, and joined forces to tell their sons story.

They write alternating chapters explaining the pain and the glory that gave birth to this new movement.

But at the heart of the book is an earnest expression of every black parents fear.

As parents, we all too well know the everyday worrying about our children. Now that worrying has been amplified by our children being shot and killed, and nobody is being held accountable, Fulton told Vanity Fair in a recent interview.

The parents retraced the steps they took to put a face to their sons story and give it an emotional life.

Although it was said that the family purposely chose a photograph of Trayvon that made him appear younger, Martin denies that was the intent.

They chose the photo that was easily accessible in their time of grief, the father wrote.

The one that would turn out to be published the most was the picture of him in his red Hollister T-shirt. We simply provided the media with photographs that we had access to and they chose what they wanted to run, he said.

On February 26, 2012, Trayvon was an unknown teenager.

Today he is a martyr of a cause that has been going on since black people first arrived in America.

Join me for two conversations with Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, hosted by The Chicago Humanities Festival, on Thursday Feb. 16 and Friday, Feb. 17. Go to chicagohumanities.org for times and locations.

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Mitchell: Trayvon Martin's parents move to keep his legacy alive - Chicago Sun-Times

Norman Miller Daily News Staff @Norman_MillerMW

FRAMINGHAM Although often portrayed as a terrorist or anarchist organization by its opponents, Black Lives Matter exists to give a group that has been ignored and treated like second-class citizens a voice, a member of the group said on Saturday.

Speaking at a Black History Month program at the Greater Framingham Community Church, Martin Henson of Black Lives Matter-Boston, the groups existence is necessary.

We took this month where we want to make sure there is a black voice heard, said Henson, speaking to about 30 attendees. Black Lives Matter exists because its something we need to survive. Im not going to give the world as it is to my daughter. Im not going to do it.

Saturdays event featured artwork from Framingham elementary and middle school students that celebrated Black History Month, as well as Black Lives Matter.

It also featured a community reading of an abridged version of Frederick Douglass 1852 speech, The Meaning of the Fourth of July for the Negro, led by Fran Smith of Mass. Humanities, a human rights group based in Northampton.

Black Lives Matter started in 2012 after George Zimmerman was cleared of murdering Trayvon Martin in Florida, Henson said. Since then, Black Lives Matter has changed.

It started as a hashtag, then turned into an organization and then turned into a movement, said Henson. Black Lives Matter is inclusionary. There is no standard of what you have to look like, the way you have to act or what you have to think.

Black Lives Matter is an abolitionist group it wants to abolish the current prison system and the current way of policing that all too often targets blacks and minorities, Henson said. He called prison one step away from slavery.

When asked if there werent prisons, what would happen, Henson said there has to be a better way for society to treat people.

I know for sure what we do now is inhumane, he said. I know Im going to focus on stopping what is inhumane.

Rev. Anthony Lloyd, the pastor for the Greater Framingham Community Church, spoke about KKK flyers that were dropped off at several Framingham homes on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

He said, when it occurred, he was contacted by reporters for comment. But, he said, he is not the right person to talk to.

Im not here to say black folks are upset by the KKK, said Lloyd. You dont need to call me about that. You have to call the white folks who live in Framingham and see if thats the type of community they want to live in. Part of the solution is to see how they feel about this.

Norman Miller can be reached at 508-626-3823 or nmiller@wickedlocal.com. Follow Norman Miller on Twitter @Norman_MillerMW or on Facebook at facebook.com/NormanMillerCrime.

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Black Lives Matter gives a voice, speaker says in Framingham - Milford Daily News