It's a shame racial justice still eludes U.S.

It is instructive to consider the tragedy of Trayvon Martin's death from its beginning. Let's start -- for now -- at the moment an armed volunteer watchman determined that the boy merited his sustained attention.

Was it that Martin appeared to be a stranger in a walled-off, multiracial community his dad called home? That he was a teenager? Was it the hoodie he wore? The way the tall young man walked? The movement of his hands?

The color of his skin?

George Zimmerman would tell police that, later, Martin, 17, attacked him and that he shot the young man in self-defense, although supporting evidence, thus far, appears to be sparse.

At the point when Zimmerman began to pursue Martin, there was no knowing -- as if it mattered then or now -- about Martin's school suspensions or an empty bag of marijuana in his backpack.

All there was in that instant was Martin's appearance and demeanor. Zimmerman's assumptions about him -- let's call it what it is, racial profiling -- were the catalyst for all that followed that night: Zimmerman's call to police, his decision to follow Martin and the police department's initial assertion that Zimmerman's actions could have been justified by Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law that makes fear ample justification for killing.

What happened that night? Were either victim or shooter under the influence of drugs or alcohol? Was the shooting justified? They are simple questions, standard grist for any homicide investigation.

But the inquiry stalled until a still-growing coalition began to demand answers. Why is a call for justice imperative? Because in this case -- and there are others -- significant action came only after the push of public pressure.

The outcry over the death of Martin is not new, as civil rights activist Julian Bond made clear during a crowded lecture on the history of the civil rights movement at Hofstra University last week.

Bond talked about the nation's continued stubborn blindness on matters of race. It is typified, he said, by the practice of blaming victims, rather than racism, for their circumstances -- as a now-former New Orleans police officer, in a Facebook posting, said Martin's choice of clothing was responsible for his death.

Bond compared Martin's case to the murder of Emmett Till. On a dare, Till, 14, entered a store in 1955 and interacted with a white woman. He was later kidnapped, shot in the head and tossed into the Tallahatchie River with a 70-pound cotton gin fan tied to his neck with barbed wire.

Despite admitting to the abduction, two white men were acquitted by an all-white jury because the body, which lay in that river three days, could not be positively identified.

"Emmett Till's death terrified me," said Bond, who was 15 when the boy was murdered. Bond's remedy was to join with others fighting racial and economic inequality. The 1950s and '60s bred the successful civil rights strategy of coalitions standing together to spotlight injustice and force change. The shame is that almost 60 years later the need for demanding justice remains.

During a candlelight vigil last week for Martin, Hofstra students took to a lectern, one by one, to talk about Martin, about his lost future. One acknowledged the diversity of views about the case on campus, saying it was OK to disagree about the case as long as students keep talking; another asked that Zimmerman be pitied rather than hated.

"It's important for us to be aware," Natasha Puri, a senior studying accounting, said as the group began to scatter into the cold night. She looked out at the multiracial crowd, many of whom had pulled hoodies over their heads during a moment of silence.

"It could have been any of us," she said.