More Americans are worried about race relations than at any time since Gallup began its latest survey on the subject in 2001. Forty-two percent said they were concerned a “great deal” over race relations. “Race relations, one of the top concerns in the 1950s and 1960s, has returned as a major issue this decade,” wrote Gallup.

Leading up to the presidential election in 2008, Americans were hopeful that then Sen. Barack Obama would heal race relations in the United States. A Gallup poll taken a day after the election revealed that only 10 percent of Americans were worried that race relations would worsen under his presidency, while 70 percent of Americans were optimistic that race relations would improve. It is now clear that race relations have not played out as expected.

Participants were asked to answer if they were worried a “great deal,” a “fair amount,” “only a little,” or “not at all” about the state of race relations in America. Forty-two percent responded that they were worried a “great deal,” and 27 percent responded they were concerned a “fair amount.” That means the amount of Americans troubled over the state of race relations in their country has reached almost 70 percent. Americans are equally as worried over race relations today as they were optimistic over it nine years ago. What happened?

During the early days of Mr. Obama’s presidency in 2010, concerns over race relations remained fairly low, and even reached its lowest point at 13 percent. But the poll reveals that in 2014, worries began to increase dramatically—the same year that a white police officer killed an 18-year-old black male in Ferguson, Missouri. The media picked up the story and “inflamed the situation considerably. They essentially reported the event as a policeman brutally murdering an innocent boy out of racism—despite an absence of facts and considerable evidence to the contrary,” wrote Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry in 2014. Mr. Flurry also wrote in his book Ezekiel: The End-Time Prophet: “Violent protests started immediately, before the case could be heard in court. Then they intensified after the policeman was acquitted. President Obama publicly criticized the police for coming down too hard on protesters.”

Following the incident in Ferguson, there have many more perceived racial injustices that have been propagated by the media, erupting in numerous violent riots. As revealed, race relations in America did not improve over the course of President Obama’s presidency, and racial tensions will only continue to increase.

To see where this trend will lead, read Gerald Flurry’s article “Where America’s Race Riots Are Leading.”