Jeremiah Wright controversy

The Jeremiah Wright controversy gained national attention in the United States, in March 2008 after ABC News investigated the sermons of Jeremiah Wright who was, at that time, the pastor of then U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama.[1] Excerpted parts of the sermons were found to pertain to terrorist attacks on the United States and government dishonesty and were subject to intense media scrutiny.[2][3] Wright is a retired senior pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago and former pastor of Obama.[4]

Obama denounced the statements in question, but critics continued to press the issue of his relationship with Wright. In response to this, he gave a speech titled "A More Perfect Union", in which he sought to place Wright's comments in a historical and sociological context. In the speech, Obama again denounced Wright's remarks, but did not disown him as a person. The controversy began to fade, but was renewed in late April of that year when Wright made a series of media appearances, including an interview on Bill Moyers Journal, a speech at the NAACP, and a speech at the National Press Club.[5] After the last of these, Obama spoke more forcefully against his former pastor, saying that he was "outraged" and "saddened" by his behavior, and in May he resigned his membership of the church.[6]

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