She had a joyful life before the killing of her teenage son, Trayvon Martin, in 2012. Since then, she has been determined to change laws and minds – as an activist, an author and by running for office

Few people have acquired such a high-public profile as reluctantly as Sybrina Fulton. Before February 2012, she was content to be an anonymous Floridian, working for the Miami housing department and raising her two sons with her ex-husband, Tracy Martin. Then one of her sons, 17-year-old Trayvon, was shot and killed.

Trayvon had been walking to his father’s fiancee’s house one evening, unarmed, minding his own business; an armed neighbourhood watch coordinator named George Zimmerman decided the teenager was acting suspiciously. Zimmerman called the police, and, against their advice, decided to follow Trayvon. Moments later, after a violent encounter, Trayvon was shot dead. Zimmerman claimed he had acted in self-defence. At the trial, five months later, he was found not guilty of second-degree murder.