back. and what was that experience like for you and your mother sitting there with henry lewis gates? to see all the young people there who were engaged in this again. the one thing i would have been disappointed if it was like one of those rock concerts where everybody s over 50 years oechltd but to have all the young people there and across a variety of skin colors. you know, i mean, just, and to have them feel a new called action was a cause of great optimism for me. i m going to have to leave it there. we re excited about this, though. and we hope to come see the center. thank you. and it s the largest single donation in the history. the hutchens center launched earlier this month. it even has a hip-hop archive.
people s pockets is going to be as worthless as a confederate dollar after the war between the states. all of this represents a profound misreading of american history. the country needs a better understanding of the black experience in america, past, present, and future. that s why i was so happy to have a chance to speak with harvard professor henry lewis gates and investor glen hutchens who donated $15 million to help professor gates launch the new hutchens center for african and african-american research. the largest center of its kind in the country. i began by asking dr. gates why the center was so important now. i think that the challenge of race and class differentials, the greatest challenge to american democracy that we can
washington post. and he came out with no secret service, no advanced warning at all. we can certainly attest to that since we were i was sitting right here in the chair, then all of a sudden there was the president coming out into the briefing room. but it was clearly something that there had been a lot of pressure for him to say something but something that he really wanted to think through before he spoke out. obviously it was, andrea. you know in what i wrote last week actually wrote on thursday, i was very skeptical as to whether not whether president obama could be eloquent on the subject of race i know that he can but whether he could cut through, whether he could communicate effectively from the white house on race. when he had tried to do that in the past, it hadn t quite worked out the way he wanted, as after the arrest of professor henry lewis gates, for example, that confrontation with the white
zimmerman on the basis of hate crime legislation, are now trying to focus all the energy, all the upset about this case into repeal of those stand your go around laws. i think they re trying to direct that energy. that s a very strong political move for them. look, he s the president of the united states, a busy man. i doubt he sat there in front of the television and watched the evidence unfold and yet he s offering a judgment here, the same way he did in 2009, you know, in the case of henry lewis gates, the harvard professor, who was arrested. the president, with racial overtones, said police acted stupidly. why is the president of the united states weighing in on local criminal matters, juan? oh, my gosh, greg. this is what i said to you at the very start of our conversation this afternoon. the president is taking a tremendous risk by speaking out because people immediately, in reacting to him and not his words and not his intent, not
personal matter. he weighed in on the henry lewis gates and he caught a whole lot of heck for it. i want to play one bit of sound. trayvon martin s parents did their first round of interviews since the verdict. as i said, i want to play some sound of tracy martin, something he said on the today show about the role that he thinks race plays in this case. was he racially profiled? i think that if trayvon had been white, this wouldn t have never happened. so obviously race is playing some type of role. david, your response to that because obviously that s the opposite of what the juror told anderson cooper. and it wasn t argued on the basis of race. again, this was an argument or a prosecution that defends over was this a justifiable shooting or not. also the numbers back it up when you add significant or a number of incidents involving black youth. did he profile him as black?