“Trayvon Martin could have been me thirty five years ago.”
Remarks regarding the shooting of Trayvon Martin and Trial of George Zimmerman (2013). Source: Barack Obama: "Remarks on the Verdict in State of Florida v. George Zimmerman," July 19, 2013. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=103873&st=&st1= For the background of this quote see this source.
2013
Context: Trayvon Martin could have been me thirty five years ago. And when you think about why, in the African-American community at least, there is lot of pain about what happened. I think it is important to recognize that the African-American community is looking at the issue through a set of experiences and a history, that doesn’t go away. There are very few African-American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they are shopping at a department store. That includes me. There are very few African-American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me at least before I was a senator. There are very few African-Americans who haven’t had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off.
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Barack Obama 1158
44th President of the United States of America 1961Related quotes
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Context: I have been writing & speaking what were once called novelties, for twenty five or thirty years, & have not now one disciple. Why? Not that what I said was not true; not that it has not found intelligent receivers but because it did not go from any wish in me to bring men to me, but to themselves. I delight in driving them from me. What could I do, if they came to me? — they would interrupt and encumber me. This is my boast that I have no school & no follower. I should account it a measure of the impurity of insight, if it did not create independence.
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