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In Wake of Zimmerman Verdict, Obama Makes Extensive Statement on Race in America Obama Takes On Florida Killing and Race in U.S.
(about 5 hours later)
WASHINGTON — President Obama, making a surprise appearance on Friday in the White House briefing room to address the verdict in the Trayvon Martin killing, spoke in personal terms about the experience of being a black man in the United States, trying to put the case in the perspective of African-Americans. They were Mr. Obama’s most extensive comments on race since 2008, and his most extensive as president. WASHINGTON — After days of angry protests and mounting public pressure, President Obama summoned five of his closest advisers to the Oval Office on Thursday evening. It was time, he told them, for him to speak to the nation about the Trayvon Martin verdict, and he had a pretty good idea what he wanted to say.
“I think it’s important to recognize that the African-American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that — that doesn’t go away,” Mr. Obama said in the briefing room. “There are very few African-American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me.” For the next 15 minutes, according to a senior aide, Mr. Obama spoke without interruption, laying out his message of why the not-guilty ruling had caused such pain among African-Americans, particularly young black men accustomed to arousing the kind of suspicion that led to the shooting death of Mr. Martin in a gated Florida neighborhood.
A jury on Saturday found George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, not guilty of second-degree murder in the killing of Mr. Martin in early 2012. The verdict has elicited marches and protests across the country, although there has been little violence. The killing of Mr. Martin, an unarmed black teenager, ignited a national debate on racial profiling and civil rights. On Friday, reading an unusually personal, handwritten statement, Mr. Obama summed up his views with a single line: “Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.”
Mr. Obama issued a statement shortly after the verdict. But on Friday, he talked more broadly about his own feelings about the verdict and the impact it has had among African-Americans. “You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have been my son,” he said. “Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.” That moment punctuated a turbulent week marked by dozens of phone calls to the White House from black leaders, angry protests that lit up the Internet and streets from Baltimore to Los Angeles, and anguished soul-searching by Mr. Obama. Aides say the president closely monitored the public reaction and talked repeatedly about the case with friends and family.
He added: “I don’t want to exaggerate this, but those sets of experiences inform how the African-American community interprets what happened one night in Florida. And it’s inescapable for people to bring those experiences to bear.” Several people who have had conversations with Mr. Obama’s top aides said a president who has rarely spoken about America’s racial tensions from the White House was particularly torn about appearing to force the hand of Eric H. Holder Jr., the attorney general, when it comes to any investigations in the case.
Mr. Obama also said he and his staff were examining policy options, and he raised questions about the wisdom of laws like Florida’s Stand Your Ground law. The White House’s original plan — for Mr. Obama to address the verdict in brief interviews on Tuesday with four Spanish-language television networks — was foiled when none of them asked about it.
“I think it would be useful for us to examine some state and local laws to see if it — if they are designed in such a way that they may encourage the kinds of altercations and confrontations and tragedies that we saw in the Florida case, rather than defuse potential altercations,” the president said. Instead, he appeared in the White House briefing room with no advance warning and little of the orchestration that usually accompanies presidential speeches. Mr. Obama spoke for 18 minutes, offering his own reflections and implicitly criticizing gun laws and racial profiling methods — both of which, critics say, played a role in Mr. Martin’s death.
In his remarks, the president called on Americans to search their souls on the question of race relations in the country, a topic that he has confronted only sporadically as the nation’s first black president. Mr. Obama continued to avoid criticizing either the conduct of the trial or the verdict, in which a jury found a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Fla., George Zimmerman, not guilty of all charges in the killing of Mr. Martin in February 2012.
At the beginning of the month, Mr. Obama returned from a weeklong trip to Africa, where he stood in the cell that Nelson Mandela had occupied for 18 years before shattering South Africa’s system of racial segregation to become that country’s president. In a speech in Cape Town, Mr. Obama hailed the racial progress that country has made in the last generation. But in the most expansive remarks he has made about race since becoming president, Mr. Obama offered three examples of the humiliations borne by young black men in America: being followed while shopping in a department store, hearing the click of car doors locking as they cross a street, or watching as women clutch their purses nervously when they step onto an elevator. The first two experiences, he said, had happened to him.
“You’ve shown us how a prisoner can become a president. You’ve shown us how bitter adversaries can reconcile,” Mr. Obama said in South Africa. “You’ve confronted crimes of hatred and intolerance with truth and love.” “Those sets of experiences inform how the African-American community interprets what happened one night in Florida,” Mr. Obama said. “And it’s inescapable for people to bring those experiences to bear.”
On Friday, he urged Americans to be honest with themselves about how far this country has come in confronting its own racial history. For black leaders who had beseeched the president to speak out — inundating White House officials with phone calls — his remarks were greeted with a mixture of relief and satisfaction.
“Am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can; am I judging people, as much as I can, based on not the color of their skin but the content of their character?” he said. “That would, I think, be an appropriate exercise in the wake of this tragedy.” The Rev. Jesse Jackson said Mr. Obama had no choice but to confront mounting concern among African-Americans about the Martin case and recent Supreme Court rulings on affirmative action and voting rights.
The answers to those questions, Mr. Obama suggested, will help determine how much progress America still needs to make. But he also predicted that future generations will be more inclusive than the present one. “At some point, the volcano erupts,” Mr. Jackson said.
“When I talk to Malia and Sasha and I listen to their friends and I see them interact, they’re better than we are,” he said, referring to his two daughters. “They’re better than we were on these issues. And that’s true in every community that I’ve visited all across the country.” From the moment the verdict was announced on Saturday night, black activists had called on Mr. Obama to express the anger and frustration of their community. The pressure only increased after he issued a carefully worded statement urging respect for the jury’s decision.
Mr. Obama had been under pressure from some African-Americans to weigh in more forcefully after the verdict. For several days, his spokesman deflected questions about Mr. Obama reaction. “We needed this president to use his bully pulpit,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights activist and host on MSNBC, who urged Mr. Obama’s advisers to have him speak out.
But on Friday, after several days of silence, the president appeared eager to offer his thoughts. He declined to take questions, but talked at length about his personal experience as a black man and about the historical context that shapes African-American responses to cases like the one involving Mr. Martin. The parents of Mr. Martin, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, said they were “deeply honored and moved” by Mr. Obama’s comments. “President Obama sees himself in Trayvon and identifies with him,” they said in a statement on Friday. “This is a beautiful tribute to our boy.” 
“That all contributes, I think, to a sense that if a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario, that, from top to bottom, both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different,” Mr. Obama said. For some black activists, however, Mr. Obama’s remarks were too little, too late. Tavis Smiley, a radio host who has long been a critic of the president, said the president has chosen to “lead from behind” on race issues.
When Mr. Martin was shot in 2012, the president offered an emotional response, saying that “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon” and adding that “When I think about this boy, I think about my own kids.” The president’s advisers selected the White House briefing room as the location for Mr. Obama’s remarks during the Thursday meeting, calculating that it would be less formal than a full-dress speech — but would shield him from the questions he would likely face in a longer interview about why he had waited days after the verdict to speak.
In his comments on Friday, Mr. Obama praised the judge in the case and said that “once the jury’s spoken, that’s how our system works.” The advisers said Mr. Obama was anxious to confront the issue of race in a way that he has not since he ran for president in 2008. In a landmark speech to defuse the political storm over his Chicago pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., Mr. Obama spoke about what he called “the complexities of race” in America.
But he urged the country to take a broader look at the issues of race and the criminal justice system, saying that local and state communities should do more training to prevent profiling by law enforcement and others. As president, Mr. Obama has only periodically returned to the subject. And on the few occasions that he has, it has often been in reaction to an event — a black Harvard professor’s arrest, or Mr. Martin’s death. A month after Mr. Martin was killed, Mr. Obama said, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”
He also said laws like Florida’s Stand Your Ground measure should be re-examined to make sure they are working to the benefit of everyone. The president’s remarks on Friday were different: more expansive, more personal and more reflective of the concerns of fellow blacks. His comments mirror public opinion among African-Americans, according to polls.
“For those who resist that idea that we should think about something like these Stand Your Ground laws, I just ask people to consider if Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk?” he asked. “And do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman, who had followed him in a car, because he felt threatened?” A telephone poll conducted June 13 to July 5 by Gallup found that blacks were “significantly less likely now than they were 20 years ago to cite discrimination as the main reason blacks on average have worse jobs, income, and housing than whites.” It found that 37 percent of blacks today blame discrimination. In 1993, 44 percent said the same.
The president said he was not advocating “some brand new federal program.” But he said Americans should try to figure out new ways to “bolster and reinforce our African-American boys.” He said that he and the first lady, Michelle Obama, talk often about the black youth who need positive reinforcement. Mr. Obama has also shown more willingness to speak in personal terms. At Morehouse College in Atlanta in May, he told graduates, “Sometimes I wrote off my own failings as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down.”
“There are a lot of kids out there who need help who are getting a lot of negative reinforcement,” he said. “And is there more that we can do to give them the sense that their country cares about them and values them and is willing to invest in them?” His remarks Friday were also reminiscent of the tone in his speeches during his trip to Africa earlier this month. After standing in the cell that Nelson Mandela occupied for 18 years, Mr. Obama told a South African audience, “You’ve shown us how a prisoner can become a president.”

Michael Shear contributed reporting.

On Friday, Mr. Obama brought that message home, urging Americans to be honest with themselves about how far this country has come in confronting its own racial history.
“Am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can?” he asked. “Am I judging people, as much as I can, based on not the color of their skin but the content of their character? That would, I think, be an appropriate exercise in the wake of this tragedy.”

Jodi Kantor contributed reporting from Truro, Mass.