Kevin Cunningham: The one man who helped spark online protest in Trayvon case

MNSNBC - When Kevin Cunningham read about the killing of teenager Trayvon Martin early this month, he turned to a platform he was just starting to experiment with - social media - to add his voice to the few that were expressing outrage...

Luther Vandross was outed as gay after his death.

From MSNBC: When Kevin Cunningham read about the killing of teenager Trayvon Martin early this month, he turned to a platform he was just starting to experiment with – social media – to add his voice to the few that were expressing outrage about a Florida police department’s handling of the case.

Little did he know when he started an online petition demanding that authorities prosecute the shooter, that it would garner more than 2 million signatures and help draw international attention to the 17-year-old’s shooting death on Feb. 26.

“I decided to take the skills that I’ve been working on … and apply them to the situation and see how well it would work out, and it just went crazy on me,” said Cunningham, 31, of Washington, D.C., who created the petition on the Change.org website on March 8.

“What I’ve learned through social media, you don’t have to go through institutions anymore…. Any individual with any idea can make it work if they have (a) connection to the Internet,” he added.

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