TITLE CARD: On the night of February 26, 2012, African American student Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer. NEWSCASTER:Police have the gun, they’ve got the shooter─

NARRATOR:To some, the shooting suggested that race may have played a role.

WESLEY LOWERY, Author, They Can’t Kill Us All:Trayvon Martin’s only sin was his skin color, and that had he been a white kid in a hoodie trying to walk home that night, no one would have confronted him or bothered him. And I think that that is why Trayvon Martin becomes such a pivotal tension point on race and justice during the Obama years.

NEWSCASTER:─mountain of evidence in the Trayvon Martin shooting case─

NEWSCASTER:─story that’s ignited fierce passions across the nation, as allegations of racism and miscarriage of justice tear apart─

NEWSCASTER:The man who shot Trayvon hasn’t been charged. He’s claiming self-defense─

NARRATOR:At first, the president did not make any public remarks about the shooting.

JELANI COBB, The New Yorker:The contradiction of this happening in the midst of a black presidency sharpened the irony and intensified the pain I think people felt around this.

NARRATOR:Obama was reluctant to deal with race head on. He had learned to be cautious on the subject.

NEWSCASTER:Police did not arrest George Zimmerman, saying they didn’t have probable cause─

NARRATOR:But now the pressure to say something was growing.

NEWSCASTER:Protests are being planned tonight for a national day of justice─

NEWSCASTER:The shooting sparked outrage across the country. Martin’s parents say it was racially motivated─

NEWSCASTER:Rallies were held across the country today, including here in D.C., demanding─

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON, Author, The Black Presidency:People were pushing him, “Say something. Are you going to say anything? You’re a black man. A young black boy has been murdered by a guy who’s a hyped-up, you know, neighborhood watchman. Black America is traumatized by this.” Silence from the White House, nothing, no leadership, no─ no insight.

NARRATOR:Finally, almost a month after the killing, Obama was confronted with it at a news conference in the Rose Garden.

MICHAEL SHEAR, The New York Times:We were pressing the White House to say something, you know, to have─ to have the president say something about it.

REPORTER:Can you comment on the Trayvon Martin case, sir?

Pres. BARACK OBAMA:Well, I’m the head of the executive branch and the attorney general reports to me, so I’ve got to be careful about my statements to make sure that we’re not impairing any investigation that is taking place right now.

DAVID REMNICK, Author, The Bridge:Every time there’s an incident, his rhetoric is examined with a tuning fork. It never satisfies everybody. It’s very, very difficult.

Pres. BARACK OBAMA:But obviously, this is a tragedy. I can only imagine what these parents are going through.

MICHAEL SHEAR:And when he finally comes out, it was a rare moment of emotion for a president that liked to, you know, keep that in check.

Pres. BARACK OBAMA:But my main message is─ is to the parents of Trayvon Martin. You know, if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon. And you know, I think they are right to expect that all of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves and that we’re going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened.

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON:Finally, when he’s pushed, he makes it a personal one. You know, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon Martin.” Innocent remark, anybody listening to that would see it’s the father’s heart looking at what might have been his own son.

TA-NEHISI COATES, Author, Between the World and Me:The president’s a black dude, and so on some level, he has some sort of familiarity with that. He understands the kind of fear that has, you know, typically pervaded, you know, the notions of black male-hood.

TALK RADIO:The president has inserted himself in a racial way─

NARRATOR:On the right-wing airwaves, outrage.

TALK RADIO:His whole goal is to provoke a racial confrontation!

TALK RADIO:He’s got it in for this country!

WESLEY LOWERY:It became this huge tension point by the president literally just acknowledging his own skin color, that, “Look, I mean, I have two daughters, but if I had a son, he’d probably look like that kid.” That’s an objective fact. But it became this─ this huge firestorm.

TALK RADIO:If the president had a son, he wouldn’t look anything like Trayvon Martin. He’d be wearing a blazer from his prep school. He’d be driving a Beamer.

TALK RADIO:We have a president who has frozen racial tension in our country instead of thawing racial tension!

JELANI COBB, The New Yorker:All of a sudden, it goes into this racially retrenched place, and people are kind of seeing this as a kind of indicator that he’s not fair or perhaps he favors African-Americans. In the context of Trayvon Martin, this really explodes.

TALK RADIO:The president’s goal is to heighten African-American turnout by stoking a feeling of victimization in the African-American community.