Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright: What's the Media Got to do With it?
/- Originally published in Trumpet News Magazine [here]
By Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ
One of the most difficult lessons I have had in trying to teach my seminarians for thirty years is the reality of the African American church in North America and how there has never been a “monolithic” church for African Americans in this country. Just as there were sects and factions in first century Judaism when Jesus started his ministry, the same has held true across the centuries for the Church of Jesus Christ in general and for the African American Church in particular.
In Jesus’ day there were Essenes, Pharisees, Sadducees and Hasmodeans. Not everybody who served the God of Abraham and Sarah held the same theological positions. The Pharisees, for instance, thought that there was life after death. The Apostle Paul was a Pharisee. The Sadducees, however, felt that there was no resurrection of the dead.
The Sadducees also believed that cooperation with the colonizing government (the oppressor) was the best way to “get along.” The old, old position of “go along to get along” has been around for centuries! When the Christian Church came to the shores of America through the African American Diasporic reality, the same reality of “factions,” sects and differing theological positions came with it! There were some Africans who believed that you had to “go along to get along” from the earliest days of chattel slavery in this country up to and including the year 2005.
When Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner heard the voice of God telling them to stand up and fight for freedom, there were other black Christians (Africans from the continent who were also in bondage!) who felt that liberationwas not as important as cooperation! Each of those three ministers’ attempts at being free and setting African slaves free was thwarted by other black Christians who “ran and told Massa” what “dem darkies” were getting ready to do.
We also saw that same reality repeated in the struggle to end Apartheid in South Africa. The Freedom Fighters such as Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko and Chief Albert Luthuli were opposed by “go along to get along” Black South Africans like Buthelezi. If you would think back just a few years you will remember the “neck tie” solution that many Black Freedom Fighters in South Africa had for dealing with the Blacks who “tricked on them” and told the white Afrikaaners what those Blacks who were seeking freedom were trying to do.
In our age and in our time the same was true from the inception of the “Civil Rights” movement. Dr. Martin Luther King (a Christian minister) was not loved by all Black Christians. Dr. Martin Luther King was not loved by all Black ministers. Dr. King was not supported by the Black community in large numbers outside of the South. The organization that Dr. King led was the SouthernChristian Leadership Conference. The emphasis is on the word “Southern” because Dr. King’s movement was a movement that had tremendous support in the South.
Northern Negroes thought that “Massa Daley had been good to us!” and did not support Dr. King’s vision or his fight for liberation. Cooperation was the agenda for those Black Christians—not liberation!
In this city, the city of Chicago, the president of the National Baptist Convention, the Rev. Dr. Joseph Harrison Jackson, boldly opposed Dr. Martin Luther King and stood with Mayor Daley in opposition to Dr. King’s push for freedom and desegregation here in the city of Chicago. Black preachers in the National Baptist Convention lined up behind “Jack” and boldly opposed Dr. Martin Luther King.
In the 21st century (40 years after the Civil Rights Movement ended) the same reality is with us. There are hundreds of ministers who believe that liberation is the agenda. They preach it. They teach it. They live it. They walk it and they talk it constantly! Their name is “legion.” Those liberationpreachers included my father, Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Sr., Dr. Samuel DeWitt Proctor, Bishop Henry McNeal Turner (of the AME Church), Rev. Reverdy Ransom and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Today they include Rev. Willie Wilson, Rev. Frederick Douglas Haynes III, Rev. Rudolph McKissick, Jr., Rev. James Forbes, Rev. James Cone, Rev. John W. Kinney, Bishop Vashti McKenzie, Rev. Ann Lightner, Rev. Susan K. Smith, Rev. Jerry Cannon, Dr. Katie Cannon, Father Michael Pfleger, and Rev. J. Alfred Smith (in Oakland, California).
The cooperation preachers in the African American Church today, however, have strong and “politically connected” voices who oppose the liberation agenda and seek cooperation as the methodology to be used in the 21st century. I will not call their names in this publication.
I will simply refer you to two very troubling books – New Day Begunand Long Journey Ahead. Those books call by name the black preachers who see cooperation with the George W. Bush agenda and the conservative, colored way of thinking as the road that the Black Church ought to take. Those of you who watched “The State of the Black Church”show put on by Tavis Smiley and Tom Joyner a couple of years ago saw me go head-to-head with one of those “colored conservative preachers!”
What is the difference today? The difference today is the media! The media which is now corporate owned and Republican controlled gives all of its time and energy to the “cooperation clergy.” Those of us who believe firmly in a liberation agenda are “silenced” by the media. The media puts all of its attention on the colored conservative clergy who go along with the white racist conservative platform.
What’s the media got to do with it? The media has everything to do with it! The media gives the impression that this is the “new direction” that the Black Church is taking in the 21st Century. The reality, however, is quite a different story.
When George Bush called the colored conservative clergy to the White House to support his white racist conservative agenda, over 15,000 Black Baptists were meeting at the same time and during the same week. Those Baptists (of four different Baptist denominations) agreed to call for a social agenda that addresses the truemoral values of this nation and not just same-sex marriage and abortion!
The media chose not to cover that large, historic gathering, however. They put all their attention on the few colored conservative clergy who gathered to enjoy a “photo-op” at the White House.
I call this reality to your attention in order that you might be aware of what it is you read and see in the newspapers, in the conservative “rag sheets” that pass themselves off as newspapers and magazines and on the Republican and corporate-owned television networks! The media is setting the agenda for many Black Christians who just don’t “have a clue.”
The Apostle Paul says, “My beloved brothers and sisters, I would not have you ignorant!” I don’t want you, our readers, to be ignorant either. I want you to be aware of the game that is being played on you by the media and to be aware of everything that you read and see in your newspapers and on your networks. Sincerely and respectfully yours, Pastor Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.
