After Trayvon

The trial has ended, but the repercussions of a Florida teen’s death have only just begun.

Shortly after dawn most Sundays, a dozen or so black pastors gather by conference call to pray and compare notes for their sermons later that morning. But on July 14, when Howard-John Wesley called in at 6 a.m., there were already more than 100 pastors on the line, and his computer showed 57 tweets from members of his congregation, Alfred Street Baptist in Alexandria, Va., all with the same questions: What would he say to help heal the hurt and anger after the verdict the night before? How would he deal with the fact that a neighborhood-watch man, George Zimmerman, had been found not guilty after shooting dead an unarmed black 17-year-old named Trayvon Martin?

Hours later, when the pews had filled, the message was clear. America has been facing challenges like the Martin slaying for generations. Every few years, some instance of probable profiling, police overreaction or malice grabs national attention. A young black man dies or is brutally injured. The resulting investigation and trial become national dramas, driven less by the case file than by the state of race in America, the pent-up furies that seethe beneath the national narrative of progress.

For the black pastors who preached Sunday, their messages were filled with familiar outrage over injustice. But they also embedded in their sermons a determination that this time be different, that the Martin death not be seen in isolation and the controversy not fade from public view.

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