'Our kids want to grow up, too'
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
(CNN) -- Their sons -- Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and Eric Garner -- have become symbols of a raging national conversation about police brutality and racial injustice.
The mothers of these four unarmed black men and boys felled by bullets or excessive police force have no doubt their sons would still be alive if they were white. No question, they say.
"I think absolutely my son's race and the color of his skin had a lot to do with why he was shot and killed," Sybrina Fulton, Martin's mother, told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Friday. "In all of these cases, these victims were unarmed. These victims were African-American. That needs to be our conversation."
In their first interview together, Fulton was joined by Brown's mother, Lesley McSpadden; Tamir's mother, Samaria Rice; and Garner's mother, Gwen Carr. They spoke of reliving the horrific final moments of their son's lives with each controversial death, of gaining strength from protesters and other supporters, of the importance of coming together to effect change.
"It seems our kids are getting younger and younger," Fulton said. "They're killing them younger and younger. There is no regard anymore for human life. There has to be somewhere where we draw the line and say, 'Listen, our kids want to grow up, too.'"
Carr said she had confidence in a federal investigation into whether her son's civil rights were violated. A Staten Island grand jury last week refused to indict a white police officer in the death of her son, was put in a fatal chokehold by the officer as he tried to arrest Garner for illegally selling cigarettes.
"If Eric Garner was a white man in Suffolk County doing the same thing that he was doing -- even if he would have been caught selling cigarettes that day -- they would have given him a summons and he wouldn't have lost his life that day," she said. "I believe that 100 percent."
Fulton's son was shot and killed in Florida in February 2012 by George Zimmerman, a volunteer neighborhood watch captain. The case quickly drew national attention as weeks went by without formal charges.
"We have to change mindsets," Fulton said. "We have to let people know that our children matter. Our sons and our daughters matter. We are hurting. This country is hurting."
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'Our kids want to grow up, too'