Reverend Wright's Church Bulletins: On Philanthropy, Race, And Life In The Spotlight
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About Sam Stein
Sam Stein is a Political Reporter at the Huffington Post, based in Washington, D.C. Previously he has worked for Newsweek magazine, the New York Daily News and the investigative journalism group Center for Public Integrity. He has a masters from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and is a graduate of Dartmouth College. Sam can be reached at stein@huffingtonpost.com.
On Tuesday, Sen. Barack Obama distanced himself from his controversial former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, saying in part that he no longer recognizes him as the man who served as his pastor for twenty-years.
The remarks seemingly put to rest -- at least for the time being -- the controversy that surrounded Obama's relationship to Wright. But it also raises several questions: who, exactly, was the Reverend that Obama once knew?
A review of more than 100 bulletins, starting in 2005, from Wright's Trinity United Church tells the story of a pastor who focused much of his efforts and attention on social justice and politically progressive issues. In his notes to parishioners, he bemoaned U.S. policies in Iraq and advocated on behalf of unions and laborers. He also, as his church became the topic of increased scrutiny, allowed the pages of his bulletin to become a forum for race-based, anger-filled messages decrying, on occasion, the "white supremacy" and "racist" tendencies of the government and the media.
And, as the intensity of the spotlight grew, he expressed deep frustration that Trinity had found its way under the political microscope.
"We have lost over 3,000 boys and girls in an illegal and unjust war, and the media is on a feeding frenzy about Barack Obama's church," Write wrote in late January 2007. "Where is the outrage about the 3,000 dead American military personnel and the 600,000 dead Iraqi civilians who are dead for no reason other than greed and ego? What's goin' on? On Thursday, January 18th, the House of Representatives considered legislation that would repeal some royalties and tax incentives from the oil and gas industries and redistribute that money to alternative and renewable energy such as boil-fuels. The media, however, is not covering that news. The media wants to know about Barack Obama's pastor. What's going on?"
Trinity United Church of Christ is one of the more popular, mainstream churches in Chicago's South Side, with a congregation that reaches more than 10,000 members. Reverend Wright, who helped build the institution into its current form, served as minister for more than 35 years, the last of which, more likely than not, was the most chaotic.
Trinity adhered to a stridently liberal viewpoint, which was reflected in its bulletins. For weeks in the fall of 2005, Wright drummed up support and money for Katrina relief efforts. Months later, he urged congregates to focus on tsunami recovery in Eastern Africa. Other topics included opposition to oil drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge, championing the advancement of stem cell research (President Bush, Wright wrote, "didn't get it"), urging the Senate to increase AIDS, TB and Malaria funds, and even publishing a call for calm concerning Ted Haggard, the former pastor who admitted buying drugs and having sexual relations with a male prostitute.
But on rare occasions, and seemingly more frequently as time progressed, the tone of the 'Pastor Pages' contained racially divisive and anti-American components. Usually, there was a policy hitch to what the Reverend and the others saw as a community injustice. But the language was often, at least to the outside eye, jarring.
In early July 2005, for example, Wright wrote that, on the eve of Independence Day, "we now have a new Wall to be erected in D.C. Not a wall of memory for those who died in Viet Nam; not a wall of memory for those who died in the holocaust; but a WALL OF SHAME for 20 white racist Senators who need to be ... Oops. I almost said 'lynched."
Wright was referring to the senators who had refused to co-sponsor an anti-lynching resolution that had made its way to Congress.
In October 2007, meanwhile, incoming pastor Rev. Otis Moss III wrote that: "Currently, there are about eight companies controlling 90% of everything we hear, read, watch on television or view in the movie theater. These companies operate with contempt and disdain for the Black community." His reference was to an article concerning Atlantic records trying to "turn a 14-year-old actress into Lil Kim."
Earlier, Rev Reginald Williams, writing in Trinity's bulletin, said the G8 nations' efforts on third-world poverty reduction revealed the "further exploitation and White World Supremacy of" that organization. He was making a broader critique on the commitment of the G8 to lighten the debt of the poorest countries in the world, predominantly those in Africa.
The scope of these bulletins contrast deeply with Obama's call for transcending society's racial fissures - a contrast the senator has noted repeatedly in recent weeks. And Obama has claimed that he was unaware of this type of rhetoric emanating from within the church.
"The person I saw yesterday was not the person I met 20 years ago," the Illinois senator said Tuesday at a press conference in Winston-Salem, N.C. "His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but they end up giving comfort to those that prey on hate."
But if Obama did not know about some of the "rants" coming from inside Trinity's walls, the church and its now former pastor were certainly paying attention to him. As Rev. Moss wrote in the Pastor Page on February 24, 2008, shortly before Trinity became the center of media focus:
"Sen. Obama is writing a new and creative chapter in American political history, and we should 'rejoice and be glad in it.' It may not be convenient to everyone, but it is truly liberating for everyone."
April 30, 2008 11:44 AM