10 Things You Didn't Know About the Rev. Jeremiah Wright
1. Jeremiah Wright Jr. was born on Sept. 22, 1941, in Philadelphia.
2. Wright comes from a family of pastors. His father, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Sr., was the pastor at Grace Baptist Church, and his grandfather and an uncle were pastors as well.
3. After high school, Wright entered the seminary at Virginia Union University, but he left because he was troubled by the prejudice he saw and felt that the church was not doing enough to support the civil rights movement.
4. Wright left school for six years to serve in the Marines and the Navy. He was a cardiopulmonary technician in the Navy, once working on President Lyndon Johnson.
5. Following his military service, Wright continued his education at Howard University. He would go on to complete two masters' degrees and one doctorate.
6. Wright originally planned to become an instructor at a seminary but decided to turn to preaching when he saw that many African-Americans were leaving Christian denominations for other faiths.
7. Wright became pastor of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ (motto: "Unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian") in 1972.
8. The church, which was struggling at the time, had only 87 members then. By Wright's retirement earlier this year, Trinity had more than 8,000 parishioners, including Oprah Winfrey and the rapper Common, and operated dozens of outreach ministries.
9. Wright's sermons are aligned with black liberation theology, which seeks to meld Christianity with the African-American experience and address racism and injustice.
10. A Wright sermon called "The Audacity to Hope" inspired Barack Obama's remarks at the 2004 Democratic Convention and provided the title of Obama's second book.
Sources:
Bill Moyers Journal (PBS)
Chicago Tribune
Detroit Free Press
Los Angeles Times
Trinity United Church of Christ
Virginian-Pilot
Washington Post
Reader Comments
Title of Wright's New Book
"The Truth Hurts And I Have the Audacity to Tell It"
Rev. Wright wasn't wrong
To use the sermon title from another prominant minister, Rev. Wright was not wrong. It is sad that people who consider themselves uncolored, have the innate ability to look beyond their faults and magnify the faults of others even if the others are right. If you heard the sermon, you would know that Rev. Wright was quoting a prominant white person. The bible may be right when it says whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Are you Wright haters familiar with the Phillippines, and how the U.S. occupied that soveriegn land or Hawaii, the list goes on and on, suffice it to say that American imperialism was and is a source of international consternation. To be sure, if there is a God, and if His words are true, we will eventually have to answer for our crimes. And to be sure, there was slavery in the United States and that slavery has had a lasting effect that lingers to this day. And yes, there was that whole bloody trail thing with the Indians, and the Japanese internment and you get the point. But damm be anyone who points these things out. The freight cars in inner-city L.A. filled with guns and amonition, and yes we have the video footage. PLEASE!!! Give your ignorance a rest, it begs of you. Denial is not just a river in Africa. GO OBAMA!! And Rev. Wright, we love you and appreciate your work. And the whole aids in Africa thing, we have come to find out that yes, it was a government program that used needles on both monkeys and Africans that began the transmission of Aids. I actuallt don't believe that the consequences were intentional but rather a mistake, however, the facts remain!
Wright and Obama
THis is not left or right wing. If you go to a church, you adhere to the beliefs. Obama called Wright his spiritual mentor. Wright is a Marxist, a racist, and a black supremacist. Jesus said the servant cannot be greater than his Master, therefore Obama by following him, supporting him, and looking up to him is all of the things that Wright is. He has to be. I would not vote for a man who follows a fascist or a communist. Why do you Obama supporters blindly follow a man that would be ostracized by polite society if he were white. Some of you call Obama an honest man. He obviously lies about the most rudimentary things, ie. not ever hear Wright say some of his most venous and idiotic attacks-the US government gave AIDS to Blacks. 2. Why does he deny that he was a Muslim as a boy? It is not a bad thing and something he had no control over. Why does he exalt his father who was nothing short of a CAD and his mother who was obviously as self-centered nihilist and attack his grandmother who was the only part of his family that brought stability. All of these things are strange. You see con men lie about simple things of no import. This is what is scary, Obama is caught in obvious lies and still insists on them. This is quite troubling.
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