A coalition of college students will spend the next three days marching about 40 miles between Daytona Beach and Sanford to protest the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

The group, who call themselves the Dream Defenders, said they organized the march to “stand against racial profiling, institutional racism and the legacy of violence that continues to plague young people of color.”

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But the black folk among them know all too well the deep, abiding sense that, in a country where segregation, Jim Crow and prejudice have created unequal footing, African-Americans also too often endure separate and but unequal justice.

That’s why it’s not surprising so many blacks packed in Sanford church in protest. And why blacks in Central Florida (and elsewhere) have reacted so viscerally to the death of Trayvon Martin, 17, who was gunned down last month.

He was shot to death while visiting his family at a gated neighborhood in Sanford. Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who isn’t black, admits pulling the trigger. Self-defense, he says. And he walked out the Sanford Police headquarters, with police saying there wasn’t enough evidence for an arrest.

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In the 20 days since Trayvon Martin was killed, his parents said, their trust in the Sanford Police Departmenthas disappeared.

Tracy Martin, father of the slain teen, told reporters today he felt “betrayed” by law enforcement investigating his son’s death because they have not arrested the shooter.

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In almost any community, the shooting death of a black teen by a white crime-watch volunteer would raise accusations of racism. But this one occurred in Sanford, a city that has struggled with racial tensions for a century.

Much of that tension stems from Sanford’s long history as an agricultural community that attracted laborers, many of them black, to work in the fields, farms and railroads, historians say. They formed Seminole County’s historic black communities of Georgetown, Goldsboro and Midway.