PROTESTING KILLING: Protesters chant on the steps of city hall during a Million Hoodies March in Los Angeles, California, March 26, 2012, to protest the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager, Trayvon Martin, killed by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer. Protesters demanded Zimmerman's arrest (XINHUA)

It was raining the night 17-year-old Trayvon Martin left the house of his father's girlfriend in a gated community in Sanford, Fla., and headed to the local convenience store. He wanted some candy and iced tea before watching the NBA All-Star game on television. He pulled up the hood on his sweatshirt and made a phone call to his girlfriend as he slowly walked through the darkened streets, and then noticed he was being followed by a man in an SUV.

What happened next is unclear, but witnesses said they heard a desperate wail and then a gunshot. Martin died in a dark pathway, shot at close range by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, 28, who claimed he was acting in self-defense. The police asked Zimmerman some questions and then released him without charge. It wasn't until April 11, six weeks later, that Zimmerman was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.

The delay of an arrest in the Feb. 26 shooting of Martin prompted a public outcry across the United States and protests from those who see the stain of racial injustice in the case. Martin was black. Zimmerman, whom identifies as "white Hispanic", stated the hooded teen looked suspicious and left his SUV to follow Martin despite being told by a police dispatcher to stay back. Supporters of Zimmerman say he was doing his job, protecting his neighbors after a rash of recent break-ins. To others, Zimmerman is a racist and a liar – shooting an unarmed black teenager without cause.

"[Zimmerman] talked to the police before he shot the kid, and they told him to let him go. They said, 'Don't follow him,' " Gregory Rose, 28, an office administrator in Coral Springs, Fla., told the Christian Science Monitor. "But he did, and then he acted like it was self-defense. ... I don't think he'd have shot him if he was white."

Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee temporarily resigned his post, facing criticism that his department bungled the investigation. Trayvon Martin's body was tested for drugs, while Zimmerman was not. Though Martin was carrying a cell phone, the police tagged the body as a "John Doe" for three days and apparently made no attempt to find his parents. It was only after the boy's father filed a missing person's report that he learned what had occurred.

According to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, 91 percent of black respondents said they think Martin's killing was unjustified, compared with 35 percent of whites and 59 percent of Latinos. Most white respondents said they do not know enough about the shooting to say whether or not it was justified.

"Criminal justice has really become the flash point for discussions about race and social justice in America," Marc Mauer, head of advocacy group the Sentencing Project, told The Washington Post. "Regardless of where one comes out, the depth of the response and the emotion is clearly an indication that these issues touch very deeply."

The case of Trayvon Martin has shattered the myth of the "post-racial" identity that the American Establishment has tried to establish fifty years after the launch of the Civil Rights Movement, with the election of America's first black president, said observers.

"Vast political forces are making it offensive to say that racism still exists in post-racial America. We are being almost un-American if we say that someone received unequal treatment because of race, or that racial differences even exist," wrote George Davis, professor emeritus at Rutgers University, in a column for Psychology Today.

Did Zimmerman confront the teen because he was black? Why did the police tag Martin's body as a John Doe for three days, without attempting to notify the next of kin? In a this "post racial society" answers can be buried under so many layers of personal and national self-deception that digging too deeply might open the door to chaos, Davis said.

Hundreds have protested Martin's death in New York, Florida and Los Angeles with a "Million Hoodie March" and over two million people have signed a petition demanding Zimmerman's arrest. "I am Trayvon Martin" has become a rallying cry for supporters. Civil rights groups like the NAACP (the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and leaders such as Rev. Al Sharpton have called for a Federal investigation into the case.

"It's time all of us engage in a long-term conversation on the elephant in the room -- race. And as the Trayvon Martin case tragically proves, the topic cannot be discussed without dedicating an equal amount of time towards a serious look at our justice system," Sharpton said in a statement.