The nation's largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, is expected to elect its first African-American president this June in New Orleans. His name is Fred Luter, and he says the SBC has "a heart for reaching people in difficult times."

Generations of African slaves found a powerful way of singing through suffering in spirituals that were rooted in biblical stories and images.

People of faith, black and white, need to be involved in resolving conflict through means that are other than violent, says Harold Dean Trulear, who teaches applied theology at Howard University School of Divinity.

Watch more of our discussion in the wake of the Trayvon Martin case about racial disparities in American society, religious ideas on human dignity, and revenge versus justice in contemporary culture.

"We've come a long way as a nation where there's a racial issue, but we still have a long, long, long way to go," says Rev. Fred Luter Jr., who is expected to become the first African-American president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

"These schools are the jewels of their neighborhood, and we need to save them," says Susan Work, president of Holy Family Ministries in Chicago.

"Many of the old forms of discrimination that we supposedly left behind in the Jim Crow era are suddenly legal again once you’ve been branded a felon," says Michelle Alexander, author of "The New Jim Crow."

Watch more of our conversation with author Michelle Alexander about crime, the war on drugs, and the disproportionately high number of African-Americans in prison.

"The houses are not just 'given' to the families," says Dr. Brenda Williams, "They have to work for it. They have to earn it." She and her husband have been using their own money to provide homes to disadvantaged families.

“American politics is broken today, and Dr. King’s message, his life, his values and virtues can offer us a strategy for healing what is broken.”