Wright, however, never delivered a speech at Obama’s ceremony. According to a New York Times article, Obama was advised not to have Wright speak due to his radical views on white racism and the American government.
While Wright was kept out of the national spotlight following his Amherst appearance, he has recently emerged as a key figure in Obama’s ongoing primary campaign.
In recent weeks, the Obama campaign has come under fire for Obama’s close ties to Rev. Wright, the former pastor of Obama’s Trinity United Church in Chicago, Ill. A March 13 segment on ABC’s “Good Morning America” showed Wright vociferously denouncing America, for both its foreign policy and racism, in several of his sermons. “Not ‘God Bless America,’” he said at one point, “God Damn America.” In his first sermon after 9/11, he claimed that the U.S. brought on the attacks through its own terrorism overseas, while in a different clip, he referred to the U.S. as the “U.S. KKK A.”
When he visited Amherst last year, Wright’s speech was toned down from the clips currently circulating, yet it expressed the same sort of frustration towards America that viewers worldwide are now seeing. His animated, at times jovial address featured a sharp critique of the current administration balanced by a call to work towards improving America, in spite of its flaws.
For much of his critique, Wright focused on Hurricane Katrina, and the U.S. government’s delayed response. “Think about it,” Wright said. “We’ve got an administration that can get help for tsunami victims over in Thailand in a matter of hours, victims vacationing in plush resorts ... But the same administration cannot get help for hurricane victims in New Orleans, and Gulf Port, and Beloxi for four days … You tell me it ain’t a matter of race? Even Condoleeza said race was not involved? Ray Charles could see it was race involved.”
Wright added later, “Racism is still alive, well and living in America, unconfessed and unafraid.”
In the face of these perceived problems, Wright stressed the need for action. “We need to join hands and work together, not just sing together. Work together to end poverty, to end war, to end profiteering, to start a national health plan and to ensure that every child has an excellent education based on their ability to learn, not based on their ability to pay.”
Rev. Paul Sorrentino, Director of Religious Life at the College, helped organize last year’s MLK celebration at which Wright spoke. “After Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright spoke here last February, I wrote to thank him … the Martin Luther King, Jr. Committee had just met and was unanimous in saying that the multifaith service with Dr. Wright was the single best service any of us had been to at Amherst College. I thanked him for modeling for us what it means to be a person of faith, conviction and scholarship.”
“I did in fact go to [Rev. Wright’s] speech last year, and found him to be very eloquent and charismatic, though his rhetoric was very much toned down from his more inflammatory and controversial statements,” said Eric Schultz ’10, co-President of the Amherst College Democrats. “As for Senator Obama, I think that there is no reason to be worried about his connection to Rev. Wright. While Senator Obama was a member of Wright’s congregation, that does not mean that he subscribes to all of Rev. Wright’s rhetoric, even if he agrees with the overall message.”
Sorrentino echoed Schultz’s sentiments. “I appreciated Obama’s continuing commitment to his congregation. Many church-goers take a marketing approach to church attendance. If someone says something that they do not like, or does not provide a service that they want, they go somewhere else,” Sorrentino said. “I like Obama’s approach far better. He said he doesn’t always agree with Rev. Wright. In fact, he called some of his comments ‘inexcusable’ and a divisive distortion of reality. In spite of that, he maintains his commitment to his church. He is wise enough to listen and evaluate comments as we all should.”
Some on campus, though, have taken offense to Obama’s close ties with Wright. “I am deeply disturbed by Obama’s close relationship with Rev. Wright. Wright’s divisive, nasty and often anti-American hate speech is disgusting—especially his comments of Sept. 16, 2001, only a few days after our nation’s tragedy,” said Carolyn Kendall 09E, Chairwoman of Amherst College Republicans. “For Senator Obama to continue to stand behind his mentor Rev. Wright, to whom his book is dedicated and from whom the book’s title is abstracted, and to claim that he has never heard Wright say anything controversial in his 25 years of worshiping in Wright’s congregation is deceitful and insulting to the intelligence of the American people.”
Wright concluded his Amherst address by telling the crowded Johnson Chapel audience to, “learn from the past, live in the present, look to the future.” Only the future will show the true impact of Jeremiah Wright on Obama’s bid for the presidency, but no one can doubt the impact it’s had on Obama’s campaign. Since the Wright clips circulated, Obama made a speech addressing his relations with Wright as well as the broader issue of racism in America.
“Mr. Barack Obama delivered the sort of speech that very few U.S. politicians would have the life experience and intellectual capacity to conceive,” said Professor of Black Studies and History J. Celso Castro Alves. “He reminded the listeners of Rev. Wright’s deeds as a Christian committed to social justice. He questioned the black-white binary; he resisted being racially boxed, and he asked all of us to seriously recognize the role of racism in social stratification in order for us to move beyond race.”