Who Was Jeremiah Wright Before Barack Obama Started Running for President?

Michael Eric Dyson wrote the following review of Wright’s contributions in The Chicago Sun-Times in September 2001.

Last Saturday, Trinity United Church of Christ pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., turned 60. That milestone is an opportune time to reflect on the life and career of an acknowledged master of sacred speech still at his height.

In a 1993 poll conducted by Ebony magazine naming the nation’s 15 greatest black preachers, Wright was second only to legendary pulpiteer the Rev. Gardner Taylor.

Wright’s preaching genius derives from a mix of numerous strengths. He is clearly one of the most intellectually sophisticated and scholarly ministers in the land, reading widely and thinking deeply about the pressing religious and social issues that occupy his literate sermons. He possesses a musical voice whose intonations are brilliantly regulated during the course of his sermon delivery, rising and falling as emotion and circumstance dictate. His diction is flawless, his articulation precise, and his universe of linguistic reference is international given his command of several languages.

Neither is Wright afraid to resourcefully dip into the lexicon of his native black birth and shape the grammatical constructions of his people into the ethical eloquence for which our best prophets are justly celebrated. Wright moves effortlessly from the streets to the sanctuary in illustrating the social sweep of the Christian gospel. And he is unparalleled in the pulpit in framing theological reflection with the insights and nuances of black culture, the perfect embodiment of his church’s motto: Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian.

Like his father and grandfather before him, the Philadelphia native entered the parish to fulfill his ministerial vocation. Wright thought that he would become a teacher, in light of his family’s strong educational foundation. His mother, Mary Henderson Wright, completed high school at 15, college at 18, and her first master’s degree by age 20, before garnering a second master’s degree from the University of Chicago and a doctorate in education from the University of Pennsylvania. Wright’s credentials are also impressive, including a master’s degree from Howard University and a doctorate of ministry degree from United Theological Seminary. Wright also got a second master’s degree from the University of Chicago, where he was a highly regarded scholar in the doctoral program, working with renowned historian of religion Charles Long. But Wright felt a call to reach the black masses that would never darken the halls of ivy, and thus he relocated from the scholars den to the sanctuary.

Wright went to the pastorate of Trinity in 1972, a decade after it had been established by the denomination to address the church needs of homeowning, upwardly mobile blacks, not the city’s project dwellers on the South Side. Trinity’s membership had risen to 350, but declined to a mere 87 members, with an annual budget of $30,000, by the time Wright was called.

Wright set out to enhance the strength of a black church in this predominantly white denomination by focusing on authentically black preaching, a culturally vigorous music ministry, outreach to the black poor, and racially relevant biblical teaching.

His plan worked so spectacularly that it is now the largest church, black or white, in the entire denomination. Trinity has more than 8,000 members, 70 ministries, and an annual budget of $9 million. Wright not only ministers to his immediate congregation, but he preaches countless revivals, speaks at numerous conferences, addresses a variety of social and cultural gatherings, and lectures at universities across the nation.

Wright’s prophetic stances on social issues, for instance, his church was a leading voice in the call for the end to apartheid in South Africa is more necessary now than ever. Huge segments of the church including the black church have been seduced by the materialistic gospel of prosperity that obscures critical attention to the bread-and-butter issues that define the black church’s raison d’etre: social justice, racial equality and spiritual vitality, themes Wright has relentlessly and fearlessly embraced. May he live long to preach the gospel and uplift our people.

And here’s the audio of Jeremiah Wright’s sermon “Audacity to Hope” that inspired Barack Obama’s book.

Part 1

Part 2