This episode contains audio and descriptions depicting violence,

as well as some harsh language. Please take care when listening.

The story that's ignited fierce passions across the nation,

it's caused a public outcry that spread like wildfire.

At the dawn of President Obama's second term,

America entered a period of reckoning.

It began with the 2012 death of a Florida teen named Trayvon Martin.

Martin had been walking home when he was profiled and stopped at gunpoint by a neighborhood

watchman named George Zimmerman. Trayvon Martin was shot down by a white neighborhood watchman

who claimed self-defense. Zimmerman was acquitted in 2013, igniting massive protests across the

country. People from all walks of life turned out in droves.

I said black faces! I said white faces! I said unity!

More importantly, I'll see America!

The Black Lives Matter movement was born from this moment,

and in the coming years would grow to be one of the largest civil rights movements in history.

And this reckoning over racial injustice was covered extensively by the 24-hour news cycle.

Investigation into what really happened the night 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

There is this dynamic at play here that has now come to the surface as a result of the Trayvon Martin

case. Many African-American men who see themselves as Trayvon Martin.

It was a moment that even drew comment from the president.

This could have been my son. That Trayvon Martin could have been me.

National attention was finally being paid to aspects of American life that had gone ignored

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