The Trayvon Martin Tragedy; Music Icon Lionel Richie
PIERS MORGAN, CNN HOST: Tonight, the families in the Trayvon Martin tragedy. I'll talk to both sides. Trayvon's parents and George Zimmerman's brother. And, truly, the one and only Lionel Richie. From "Dancing on the Ceiling," to "Hello," he's the ultimate hitmaker. The songs, the sensational collaborations, the fame, his daughter Nicole, and his surprising reinvention as a country singer. My exclusive with a music icon. Plus the Tiger Woods' tell-all. He's back to his winning ways.</s>TIGER WOODS, CHAMPION GOLFER: It was one hell of a test out there today.</s>MORGAN: And he's not the only one talking. Tonight my primetime exclusive with Tiger's former coach about the firestorm surrounding his new book. This is PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT. Good evening. The shooting death of Trayvon Martin has touched a nerve across America. The protests, the anger, the questions only growing. Trayvon was killed by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida. He's not talking, but lots of people are. This week they're talking to me. I spoke to Zimmerman's brother, Robert, in a primetime exclusive. Here's what he said about the explosive case.</s>MORGAN: What did George tell you Trayvon Martin allegedly did to him?</s>ROBERT ZIMMERMAN, JR., BROTHER OF GEORGE ZIMMERMAN: What has come out that I can talk about today is that Trayvon Martin somehow snuck up on him and according to Mr. Crump, their own attorney, he was on -- we don't know if this is verifiable information, but he was on the phone with his girlfriend. I don't know if that's a police source, but I know his attorney at least holds up the girlfriend as a source and says Trayvon told him, no, I'm not running. I'm going to walk real slow. And Trayvon went up to George and said the first thing to George. And there's some discussion about, did he say do you have a problem? Do you have a problem? Are you following me? Why are you following me?</s>MORGAN: What did George tell you he said?</s>ZIMMERMAN: One of those things. You know, do you have a problem with me? Following me, why are you following me? Something like that. My brother drew back to grab his phone in retreat to call again 911 and say well now, this person who I lost sight of and was not pursuing has now confronted me. That's what he did. He never got to make that call because he was attacked by Mr. Martin.</s>MORGAN: That, of course, is just one side of this tragedy. There's also Trayvon's family. Can't imagine what they're going through now. But I did speak a few days ago to Trayvon's mother and father and asked them what they would say to George Zimmerman.</s>MORGAN: Tracy, if you had the chance to speak to George Zimmerman right now, what would you say to him?</s>TRACY MARTIN, TRAYVON MARTIN'S FATHER: I'd ask him why did he, in fact, pick out my son. What was going through his mind that night? Do he realize he's destroyed an innocent child's life? My son had a future. My son was not one of these thugs in the night. He was loved. I just want -- I would just ask him, why did he, in fact, take my son's life. And how does he feel about taking my son's life?</s>MORGAN: And Sybrina, many believe that you are suffering perhaps even more now since losing your son by the attempt by some people to assassinate his character, to bring up all this stuff about his behavior at school and so on which portrays him in a very damaging light. What do you say to that?</s>SYBRINA MARTIN, TRAYVON MARTIN'S MOTHER: It bothers me as a mother to hear all of those negative things about my son. I knew Trayvon. I lived with Trayvon. And I know what he's capable of doing. And I know what he's capable of not doing. And it just -- it just hurts just to know that people are trying to damage his name. They murdered him. They're trying to murder his reputation. And I've said that before. And it's just painful to me as a mother.</s>MORGAN: As I said, many people have very strong opinions about what happened to Trayvon and why. Including my guest, Lionel Richie. He's a pop icon. He sold more than 100 million albums. His latest a country record titled "Tuskegee." He's also a father. We covered a lot of ground on a wide ranging interview. But I began by asking him about Trayvon. And as you'll hear, he has some very important things to say about it.</s>MORGAN: Before we come on to your remarkable twist now, the country music, and your incredible career, I just wanted to get your reaction to the interview I just conducted with Trayvon Martin's parents. What did you make of what they were saying?</s>LIONEL RICHIE, NEW ALBUM, "TUSKEGEE": You know, I'm a parent. How I approach this is just everyone take the race card out for a moment. If you received a phone call saying your child was shot and killed, because he looked suspicious, armed with a cell phone and the other guy has a gun, the next thing is, did he have any kind of markings on him that said security? So your kid thinks someone's chasing him. I mean this is just how I feel. And then you can't really get an explanation as to what really happened. Don't put a color on that. Just imagine. And now the outrage that's happening is if this were just a one off situation, it would be wonderful. You know it would be something you could investigate. This is a common occurrence in the black community. And so I understand now the outrage of trying to find out, it looks so obvious what it is. We just can't get it -- we can't get them to say that. And so --</s>MORGAN: I mean there were several issues at play here, aren't there? One is the apparent race issue which I think maybe a slightly miscued way of approaching this because --</s>RICHIE: Right.</s>MORGAN: You know, George Zimmerman, you know, he's not a white guy. It's not a -- it's not a white man killing a black man. So in the conventional sort of incident that sparked this kind of outrage before, that doesn't quite work. What you have is an extraordinary law in Florida, "Stand Your Ground," which entitles anybody if they feel their life's in danger to shoot somebody.</s>RICHIE: Yes. But do they have a stalking law? In other words, what I'm saying to you, the kid felt, I'm sure. I don't know who this guy is following me. We don't know if he identified himself as a security guard. We don't know this. And so I can only say that if it were my son, I would be -- I would be terrified to think of what he went through. You know, I don't know the circumstance. We don't know. But it's just one of those situations where every parent in America, in the world, would say what -- what happened?</s>MORGAN: I mean it's really important, it seems to me, that you have to allow the legal process to take its course.</s>RICHIE: I know.</s>MORGAN: George Zimmerman may well have been attacked. We just don't know. The video, it doesn't help his cause because people are watching that video tonight as I did and as you did, I'm sure, and saying where are these injuries that caused him to believe he was being -- you know, apparently his nose broken, his head thrown on the floor. It doesn't look like that has happened.</s>RICHIE: But is it attacked or is it fighting for his life? I don't -- we don't -- we can skew it the other way. I mean if someone pulls out a gun and you're not sure whether you're being mugged or whether you're being apprehended, we don't know this. And so I'm sure without the proper, you know, investigation, we will never really know what those few seconds were.</s>MORGAN: Doesn't the nature of "Stand Your Ground" as a law just frighten you as an American? Doesn't it make you think this can't be right, this law? Because it's so vague. The idea that George Zimmerman wasn't even arrested on the night is what appalls people. They're -- he shot a guy who's unarmed. Even if they had a fight, that doesn't give you the right to pull out a gun and shoot him in the street, does it?</s>RICHIE: We're bringing back the Wild West. In other words, we have enough going on right now to where fear, people don't trust, and all of a sudden now you put on top of that "Stand Your Ground" which means you're saying that in case you feel any fear at all, you can stand your ground and shoot someone else. I mean if you have a gun, you can justify and shoot someone and say I was feeling fear.</s>MORGAN: Now there are gang leaders now, apparently, who are using this as a legal excuse to get off killing other gang members. This is ridiculous.</s>RICHIE: It's ridiculous. And I think what we have to do is take nine steps back and go back to human. We have to use common sense here, Piers. And I'm telling you as a parent you've got to look at this. I wouldn't want my kid on the street anymore. What is suspicious, what classification is that? Is that racial profiling? Suspicious. What does that really mean? Every kid I know in the world has a hoodie. You know, I mean, I go -- we walk in Beverly Hills every day. I mean excuse me. Every kid in Beverly Hills has a hoodie. You know? Are they going to be deemed suspicious? And what is that going to really mean for this world that we live in? And of course, in Florida I think that law should be thrown out without a shadow of a doubt.</s>MORGAN: You grew up in the south.</s>RICHIE: Yes.</s>MORGAN: You have spoken before that your parents protected you from racism. Tell me about that.</s>RICHIE: It was interesting. I was born and raised on Tuskegee University or Tuskegee Institute campus. It's exactly 38 miles away from the lap of the confederacy in Montgomery, Alabama. But if the clan marched any night they would put us to bed early. So we didn't really know what that felt like. At least in my generation. You know, and when you have people like the Tuskegee Airmen that were brought up on -- that's where they were stationed. That's where they were from. You know, PhD's, doctors, lawyers. It was a different world. And so they trained us basically that everything was available to you. I did not know that we had a problem with where can we go to get a job? Everything was available. Everybody was a doctor, a lawyer, they were all there. Because segregation made Tuskegee so powerful. And every other university, Morehouse, Fisk. They were all little Meccas of very intelligent people because segregation was in, no jobs were available outside of those little townships.</s>MORGAN: When was the first time you realized there was racism? Aware of it?</s>RICHIE: I experienced it for the first time with the Commodores. The first time I knew about it was certainly on the march on Washington. I was old enough now to understand that. The march on Montgomery. Because we had a college student that was living with us that actually went to that. I was too young to participate. But he would come back and tell me all about it. And of course, when you see these huge policemen with the dogs and the spray and the horses and everyone is there, you know, unarmed, you know, and it was quite -- it was impactful to me. I remember as a kid I kept thinking, where are we going with this? And then I think when it really hit home for me was I had a chance to hear Malcolm X speak on the campus. And he dealt with the issue in a very philosophical way. I thought it was brilliant. He said, don't you think times are getting better? And the answer was, if you stick a knife in a man's side and you pull it out halfway, is it better? Only until you pull the knife all the way out, and the wound heals, is it better. And I kept that as my mantra throughout my growing up that all we are doing right now is rehashing exactly what my mom and dad went through, my mom and dad's parents went through. And now here we are in the next, next, next generation talking about the same issues of insensitivity, racial profiling. It's the same. It's the same identical story, just a new generation.</s>MORGAN: Let's take a break. I want to come back and talk a bit more about this. I want to see whether you think America is more or less racist since it's got its first black president. And also talk about Whitney Houston, your great friend who tragically died recently. And the song "Hello." Let's get to "Hello" at some stage of this interview.</s>RICHIE: Come on. I got to tell you about "Hello."</s>MORGAN: I want to hear it.