President Obama Comments on U.S. Race Relations, Says “Trayvon Martin Could Have Been Me”

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama was wrapped in presidential authority as he talked to a nation rubbed emotionally raw since the acquittal in the Trayvon Martin case.

Then, in a move hardly anyone saw coming, Obama unwrapped himself, and put his own young, black face on Martin's dead, young, black body.

The first black president has been accused by some of running from his blackness, and trying to address black folks' needs on the down low.

But on Friday, he suddenly lifted the veil off his black male identity and showed it to the world. It was something no American president before him could have done.

He had to do it, Obama said, because "Trayvon Martin could have been me, 35 years ago."