Editor's note: This article originally appeared on NPR's Code Switch blog, which explores race, culture and ethnicity.
One gray spring afternoon last year, thousands of people descended on Manhattan's Union Square for a rally to call for the arrest of George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed Trayvon Martin. It had been several almost four weeks since Martin, an unarmed black 17 year-old, was killed by Zimmerman, then 28, who identifies himself as Hispanic, after a confrontation one Sunday night in a gated housing community where both Zimmerman and Martin's father resided.
The police in Sanford, Fla., held Zimmerman for a night and released him after deciding he'd acted in self-defense.
