What Martin Luther King Thought Of People Like Rev. Jeremiah Wright
In a press release issued today defending Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s church invoked the memory and legacy of Martin Luther King:
Nearly three weeks before the 40th commemorative anniversary of the murder of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.’s character is being assassinated in the public sphere because he has preached a social gospel on behalf of oppressed women, children and men in America and around the globe.
But here is what Dr. King thought of people like Rev. Wright:
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
Somehow I don’t think Dr. King would have joined Rev. Wright in his conspiracy theories about the US government spreading the AIDS virus or plotting the 9/11 attacks. Nor do I think he’d go along with Rev. Wright’s thunderous rhetoric about the “U.S. of KKK-A.”
