my news story-obama reverend wright

Lauren Scott
J203
May 19, 2008
Reverend Jeremiah Wright
Reverend Jeremiah Wright has become known because he has been Barack Obama’s senior pastor since 1992. Wright has been said to make some controversial statements during his sermons at his home church, Trinity United Church of Christ. Many of the comments were filmed and taped; these videos have been circulating throughout the media and online sources. 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.
Wright became the pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC) on March 1, 1972. The senior pastor was born in Philadelphia on September 22, 1941. Wright retired from the position of senior pastor at the beginning of 2008 at the age of 66 years. His wife is Ramah Reed Wright, and he has four daughters, Janet Marie Moore, Jeri Lynne Wright, Nikol D. Reed and Jamila Nandi Wright, and one son, Nathan D. Reed. Wright attended Virginia Union University in 1959; in 1961, Wright left college and joined the United States Marine Corps. After two years of service, Wright joined the United States Navy. In 1967 Wright enrolled at Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1968 and a master’s degree in English in 1969. He also earned a master's degree from the University of Chicago Divinity School. Wright holds a Doctor of Ministry degree (1990) from the United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, where he studied under Samuel DeWitt Proctor, a mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr. (tucc.org). In addition to Pastor Wright’s four earned degrees, he has been the recipient of eight honorary doctorates.
Wright and political candidate Barack Obama once had a very close relationship. Since March 2008, it has been discovered that the title of Obama's memoir, The Audacity of Hope, was inspired by one of Wright's sermons. "As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me," Obama said last month. "He contains within him the contradictions -- the good and the bad -- of the community that he has served diligently for so many years. I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community." Obama has been close to Wright since law school, and has likened him to an "old uncle" who sometimes says disagreeable things. "I have been a member of Trinity Church since 1992. I have known Rev. Wright for almost 20 years," he said at a news conference in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. "The person I saw yesterday is not the person I met 20 years ago."
He added, "What particularly angered me was his suggestion, somehow, that my previous denunciation of his remarks were somehow political posturing." Wright, he said, had shown "little regard for me" and seemed more concerned with "taking center stage" (CNN.com).
Center stage, Wright has indeed taken. “The Obama controversy has not made Wright more timid about his convictions. If anything, it has emboldened him” (McLaughlin, Eliott, CNN.com). Wright spoke at the National Press Club on Monday (April 28, 2008), and maintained that the United States had committed terrorism in other countries. "Jesus said, 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you. Those are biblical principles, not Jeremiah Wright bombastic principles," he said. Also at the National press Club, Wright discussed that Obama has not separated himself from the pastor himself, but the remarks that were made. "He had to distance himself, because he's a politician, from what the media was saying I had said, which was un-American," Wright said.
Moreover, Wright recalled to the National Press Club that he told Obama last year, "If you get elected, November the 5th I'm coming after you, because you'll be representing a government whose policies grind under people."
Obama told reporters, “He’s obviously free to speak his mind, but I just want to emphasize that this is my former pastor. Many of the statements that he has made both to trigger this initial controversy and that he’s made over the last several days are not statements that I’ve heard him make previously. They don’t represent my views and they don’t represent what this campaign is about.” Barack Obama was interviewed on daytime TV shows, Ellen Degeneres and The View on this very issue. Since Obama has handled the issue with such grace and poise, many people continue to support Obama since March. Obama said: “No. I think that people were legitimately offended by some of the comments that he had made in the past. The fact that he is my former pastor I think makes it a legitimate political issue. So I understand that.” Obama does react to Wright’s new found publicity; he also said that media coverage of Mr. Wright had simplified his service in the church, and turned him into a caricature (nytimes.com)