Listen Live
Fantastic Voyage Generic Graphics Updated Nov 2023
Black America Web Featured Video
CLOSE

JET Magazine has a long history as Black America’s news magazine. It’s a tradition they take seriously under new editor-in-chief Mitzi Miller. In a sad postscript to 2012, Jet’s first cover story of 2013 is about 17-year-old Jordan Davis, the latest victim of Florida’s notorious “Stand Your Ground” law.  “Standing Our Ground” written by acclaimed journalist Denene Millner (the author of 21 books including the bestseller “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man” with Steve Harvey) the story exposes yet another murder of  a young Black male just months after Trayvon Martin was also killed in Florida.

The Friday after Thanksgiving, commonly known as “Black Friday” for its post-holiday sales, proved to be a tragic one for the Davis family. On that day Jordan and his friends went to a Jacksonville gas station to fill up after leaving a local mall. They encountered Michael Dunn, a 46-year-old Florida gun collector with a permit to carry a concealed weapon. A confrontation took place over the volume of the music playing in the car Davis and his friends were in. Dunn, later saying he felt “threatened” and thought the teens were “gang members”, shot into the car, wounding and killing Davis.

In the article, his parents, Ron Davis and Lucia McBath express both their grief and their commitment to justice not just for their son, but for anyone who might have to go through a similar injustice. Like Trayvon Martin’s parents, Jordan’s parents are trying to spread the word about the inequalities of the “Stand Your Ground” law and use their son’s death for a higher purpose.

“I will be out there stomping all over the nation, fighting for my son,” Davis says in the article. “We need to change these laws to back ‘when you shoot somebody, you’re going to be held accountable.’”

The latest edition of “JET” also features an interview with Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins and Jenisa Young, the third place winner in the JET national Beauty of the Week contest, part of which was featured on “The Real Housewives of Atlanta.” The issue is on newsstands now.

Notable Folks We Lost in 2012: Civil Rights
0 photos