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A woman protests in New York on July 14, 2013 a day after a US jury found George Zimmerman not guilty of murdering Trayvon Martin/AFP

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Obama urges calm after racially-charged murder trial

Fearing violence after the Zimmerman verdict, police were out in force in Sanford, and the crowd of several hundred outside the courthouse was loud at times, but not violent.

A racial divide, however, was evident in Sanford pastor Valerie Houston’s sermon on Sunday.

“Dr (Martin Luther) King (Jr) stated, the daily life of the Negro is still in the basement of the Great Society,” she said. “And today I state, the daily life of my people is still enslaved to a white supremacist society.”

Martin’s parents – father, Tracy, and mother Sybrina Fulton – had before the trial asked the public to respect the outcome and afterward gave thanks for the outpouring of support they received over the past year.

The Martin family’s attorney Benjamin Crump declined to say whether they would file a civil lawsuit against Zimmerman, but said “they are going to certainly look at that as an option.”

The most fundamental of civil rights – the right to life – was violated the night George Zimmerman stalked and then took the life of Trayvon Martin, read the NAACP letter.

“They deeply want a sense of justice. They deeply don’t want their son’s death to be in vain,” he told ABC News’s “This Week.”

Community leaders, meanwhile, called for non-violent demonstrations.

“There will be protests, but they must be carried out with dignity and discipline and let no act discredit the legacy of Trayvon Martin on the appeal of his family,” civil rights leader Reverend Jesse Jackson said on CNN.

The NAACP, the largest US civil rights group, urged supporters to sign a letter asking Attorney General Eric Holder to file civil rights charges against Zimmerman.

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“The most fundamental of civil rights – the right to life – was violated the night George Zimmerman stalked and then took the life of Trayvon Martin,” read the NAACP letter.

The Department of Justice said Sunday they continued to have an open investigation into the case, following the Florida trial.

“Experienced federal prosecutors will determine whether the evidence reveals a prosecutable violation of any of the limited federal criminal civil rights statutes within our jurisdiction,” it said in a statement.

Zimmerman faced a possible life sentence if he had been convicted of second-degree murder.

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