A Look At How Obama Has Navigated Racial Tensions

Published August 20, 2014 at 1:12 PM EDT

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U.S. President Barack Obama delivers remarks during a press briefing at the Edgartown School on August 14, 2014 in Edgartown, Massachusetts. The president, vacationing on the island, spoke about the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri and Iraq. (Rick Friedman/Getty Images)

President Obama is again faced with a crisis over race. The protests in Ferguson, Missouri, are still boiling over, 11 days after a black teenager was shot and killed by a white police officer.

Attorney General Eric Holder will be in Ferguson today to oversee the federal investigation, but as the country’s attention stays focused on the riots, calls have grown louder for the president himself to visit the St. Louis suburb.

Here & Now’s Peter O’Dowd reports, it’s the latest step in the president’s long and difficult journey navigating racial tensions in America.

Reporter

Peter O’Dowd, assistant managing editor at Here & Now. He tweets @odowdpeter.