Reverend Jeremiah Wright mentored Barack Obama

In the following video you will see and hear Barack Obama’s pastor and mentor of twenty years spew his venomous hatred for whites and America.

While anyone who knows American history would be angry and disgusted by Wright’s words, they apparently never bothered Barack Obama—that is until his association with Wright became a political liability. While the vast majority of Americans would have walked out of the church immediately, Barack Obama stayed there for twenty years during which time Reverend Wright conducted his marriage and baptized his children. You should also notice that while Hillary Clinton and others placed their hands on their hearts as our National Anthem played, Barack Obama did not. This was his policy until recently. Never in our history have we seriously considered such a man for the presidency—until now.

Relationship with Barack Obama

Barack Obama first met Reverend Wright and joined his church in the 1980s, while he was working as a community organizer in Chicago before attending Harvard Law School. Wright officiated at the wedding ceremony of Barack and Michelle Obama, as well as their children’s baptism. The title of Obama’s memoir, The Audacity of Hope, was inspired by one of Wright’s sermons.

Wright was scheduled to give the public invocation before Obama’s presidential announcement, but Obama withdrew the invitation the night before the event. Wright wrote a rebuttal letter to the editor disputing the characterization of the account as reported in an article in The New York Times.

In 2007 Wright was appointed to Barack Obama’s African American Religious Leadership Committee, a group of over 170 national black religious leaders who supported Obama’s bid for the Democratic nomination; however, it was announced in March 2008 that Wright was no longer serving as a member of this group.

Political controversy

In March 2008, a controversy broke out concerning Obama’s long-term relationship with Wright, his former pastor. ABC News found several racially and politically charged sermons by Wright. Some of Wright’s statements, such as when he said, “God Damn America”, were widely interpreted as being unpatriotic and deeply offensive.

Following negative media coverage and during a temporary drop in the polls, Obama responded by condemning Wright’s remarks and delivering a speech entitled “A More Perfect Union” at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In the speech, Obama rejected Wright’s comments, but refused to disown the man himself. Although the speech, which attempted to explain and contextualize the comments, was generally well-received, some continued to press the question of Obama’s long-standing relationship with Wright.

On April 27, Wright gave a keynote address at the 53rd Annual Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner for the Detroit chapter of the NAACP. In front of nearly 10,000, Wright gave a speech in which he referred to the controversy, saying, “I am not running for the Oval Office. I been running for Jesus a long, long time, and I’m not tired yet!” Wright argued that Americans were beginning to change their attitudes and perceptions about differences among societal groups. Citing linguistic, pedagogical, hermeneutic, and other differences, and contrasting varied musicologies, he sought to show how black culture is “different” but not “deficient”, while saying that European-American culture has historically held it to be deficient, and punctuating his speech at numerous times with the dinner’s annual theme “A Change Is Going to Come”. Earlier that day, he delivered a sermon to 4000 congregants at the Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas.

On April 28, 2008, Wright made additional remarks, and also answered questions from reporters, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. He argued that his attention in the media was not only an attack on him, but also an attack on the black church in general.

At a news conference the following April 29, Barack Obama decried Wright’s latest remarks as “a bunch of rants that aren’t grounded in the truth”. He accused his former pastor of exploiting racism and “giving comfort to those who prey on hate.” He characterized Wright’s National Press Club appearance as a “spectacle” and described its content as “outrageous” and “destructive.”

“After seeing Reverend Wright’s performance, I felt there was a complete disregard for what the American people are going through and the need for them to rally together to solve these problems,” he said. “What mattered to him was him commanding center stage.” Obama said he was “particularly angered” by Wright’s allegation that the candidate was engaging in political posturing when he denounced the minister’s earlier remarks. “If Reverend Wright considers that political posturing, then he doesn’t know me very well,” Obama said. “Based on his comments yesterday, well, I may not know him as well as I thought, either.”

On May 31, 2008, Obama announced that he had resigned from his membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ, of which Wright had previously served as pastor.

However, Obama’s criticism of Wright and his departure from his church came only when he realized that his twenty year association with Wright was beginning to hurt his run for the presidency. So the obvious question is: Why did it take Obama twenty years to learn who Reverend Wright was?