Early Thursday morning, on the same day a rally for Trayvon Martin orchestrated by the Rev. Al Sharpton is scheduled to occur, the civil rights leader's mother has died, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
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Sharpton, who is slated to be in Sanford, Fla., Thursday evening for a rally to protest the killing of Trayvon Martin, tweeted the sad news: "My mother, Ada Sharpton passed in the early hours of this morning. She was my all. I hope God will give her now, PEACE. I love you, Mom."
Sharpton was on a flight to Orlando when he received the news. His mother was 87 years old and lived in Dothan, Ala. Rachel Noerdlinger, his spokeswoman, said that Sharpton will fly to Alabama to make arrangements for his mother's funeral after the rally.
Martin was a 17-year-old, unarmed African-American teenager who was shot to death by a Hispanic neighborhood-watch captain in Florida. A protest called the Million Hoodie March, which Martin's parents attended, occurred in New York City Wednesday night.
"I am on the flight to Florida and will move forward with our plans to protest the killing of Trayvon Martin. My MOM would have wanted me to," Sharpton also tweeted.
Read more at the Orlando Sentinel.
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