Bruce Springsteen’s latest album, Wrecking Ball, might not be The Boss’ best work sonically, but there’s no doubt it’s one of his most politically overt with its frequent references to recession, recovery and Occupy-style protests.

But there’s another issue on Springsteen’s mind right now—the shocking death last month of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., who was shot by a self-appointed neighborhood watch patrolman acting under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law.

In response, while on tour in Tampa last week, Springsteen trotted out his protest song “American Skin (41 Shots),” Slate’s Browbeat reports.

Springsteen wrote the song in 2000 in response to the death of Amadou Diallo, a 23-year-old Guinean immigrant who was shot to death by New York Police Department officers who opened fire when they believed Diallo was brandishing a weapon. The officers, suspicious of Diallo, asked him to empty his pockets. Diallo pulled out his wallet, but the cops thought it was a gun and unleashed theirs on Diallo, firing 41 times and killing him outside his Bronx apartment.

The officers were charged with second-degree murder but acquitted. The incident prompted a national debate on police brutality and, just as with the death of Trayvon Martin, a deep examination of racial profiling practices.

Springsteen’s song, which doesn’t appear on any of his studio albums, won him the ire of New York City police officers. The NYPD officers’ union called for a boycott of his show, with the head of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association calling The Boss a “dirtbag” and a “floating fag.” Springsteen was also excoriated publicly by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and NYPD Commissioner Howard Safir.

The Boss, who plays in Washington on Sunday, also performed “American Skin (41 Shots)” at a show in Philadelphia last night. According to The New Yorker editor David Remnick, he introduced it by saying, “This is for Trayvon.”

Watch Springsteen perform in Tampa: