Former Secretary of State Colin Powell called George Zimmerman's acquittal in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin "questionable" and urged President Obama to speak more on issues of race in a Sunday interview with CBS' "Face the Nation."
Powell, the nation's first black secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told TV host Bob Schieffer that the Martin verdict would be forgotten soon. However, he said that President Obama, and all presidents, have a responsibility to discuss the nation's history of racial injustice.
"I think that it will be seen as a questionable judgment on the part of the judicial system down there," Powell said of the Zimmerman verdict, according to MSNBC. "But I don't know if it'll have staying power. These cases come along and they blaze across the midnight sky and then, after a period of time, they're forgotten."
"For the president to speak out on it is appropriate. I think all leaders, black and white, should speak out on this issue," the Republican added.
In light of the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s march and iconic "I Have a Dream" speech, Powell noted that although the country has made progress with race relations, there's still a lot more work that needs to be done.
"If Dr. King was here, I'm quite sure he would say, 'Congratulations on all the progress that's been made, but let's keep going. The dream is not fully achieved yet,'" said Powell, reports USA Today.
Watch a clip from Colin Powell's interview below:
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