By Susan Daniels Apr 25, 2025 @ Susan's Newsletter
Rev. Wright came under fire when he said of the 9/11 attack that “American’s chickens were coming home to roost.” But his vitriolic sermons were his stock in trade long before then and Obama was afraid it would affect his 2008 run against Clinton.
Ed Klein interviewed Barack Obama’s Chicago pastor for his book The Amateur, and according to the New York Post (May 13, 2009), Wright told Klein: “After the media went ballistic on me, I received an e-mail offering me money not to preach at all until the November presidential election.”
“Who sent the e-mail?” (Klein) asked.
“It was from one of Barack’s closest friends.”
“He offered you money?”
“Not directly,” Wright said. “He sent the offer to one of the members of the church, who sent it to me.”
“How much money did he offer you?”
“One hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” Wright said.
“Did Obama himself ever make an effort to see you?”
“Yes,” Wright said. “Barack said he wanted to meet me in secret, in a secure place. And I said, ‘You’re used to coming to my home, you’ve been here countless times, so what’s wrong with coming to my home?’ So we met in the living room of the parsonage of Trinity United Church of Christ, at South Pleasant Avenue right off 95th Street, just Barack and me. I don’t know if he had a wire on him. His security was outside somewhere.
“And one of the first things Barack said was, ‘I really wish you wouldn’t do any more public speaking until after the November election.’ He knew I had some speaking engagements lined up, and he said, ‘I wish you wouldn’t speak. It’s gonna hurt the campaign if you do that.’
“And what did you say?” (Klein) asked. “I said, ‘I don’t see it that way. And anyway, how am I supposed to support my family?’ And he said, ‘Well, I wish you wouldn’t speak in public. The press is gonna eat you alive.’
“Barack said, ‘I’m sorry you don’t see it the way I do. Do you know what your problem is?’ And I said, ‘No, what’s my problem?’ And he said, ‘You have to tell the truth.’ I said, ‘That’s a good problem to have. That’s a good problem for all preachers to have. That’s why I could never be a politician.’
“And he said, ‘It’s going to get worse if you go out there and speak. It’s really going to get worse.’ “And he was so right.”
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Wright’s church had a reputation of finding “beards” for gay men wanting an appearance of normalcy. Obama, who had Wright officiate at his 1993 wedding to Michelle, was in a gay relationship in 2007 with the choirmaster at TUCC, Donald Young. Young made the mistake of letting others know about their relationship.
On December 23, 2007, as Obama’s campaign for president was ramping up, Young was murdered execution style in his Chicago apartment. Three thousand mourners attended his funeral; Obama was not one of them.Two other gay friends of Obama and members of the church died during the last six weeks of 2007. Larry Bland was also executed and Nate Spencer died of AIDS.
Wright wisely retired in 2008 and what a retirement he got. Wright moved into a 10,340 square-foot $1.6 million house in Tinley Park, IL, which was less than 2% black. Although a racist, he didn’t mind living among whites. His church paid for it and gave Wright a $10 million line of credit.
Wright already owned the property. He bought it in 2004 for $345,000. He sold it to TUCC for $308,000 in 2006. Those proceeds went into a living trust for him and his wife. So did he sell the property to himself?
While Obama gave the illusion that he had distanced himself from Wright, he only somewhat did. Obama said: “In sum, I reject outright the statements by the Reverend Wright that are at issue.”
In the Huffington Post, Obama said:
“Most importantly, The Reverend Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life. In other words, he has never been my political advisor; he's been my pastor. And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn.”
Don’t laugh, Obama actually said that. He left out the part where Jesus was going to try to divide the country racially and return it to the ‘60s.
What is interesting about the house for Wright is that the church took out the mortgage in 2006 to build the house and managed to pay it off four years later. Where does a church get enough money to pay off an expensive house and set up a $10 million line of credit for its former pastor? It all took place under the Obama administration. Should DOGE look into any payments made circuitously to the church by USAID?
Wright was a strong proponent of Louis Farrakhan, the head of the radical Nation of Islam, and groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League have defamed him. He is anti-semantic and hates whites.
From The New Yorker by Vinson Cunningham (January 28, 2018) “Farrakhan is the author of vile, uncountable, unreconstructed, cause-derailing anti-Semitic slurs, but his Million Man March made him and the Nation a stubborn, unignorable feature of the political landscape for black would-be public servants who came of age in the nineteen-nineties.
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Cunningham talks about the photo taken in 2005 by Askia Muhammad of Sen. Obama and Louis Farrakhan that was hidden for thirteen years which could have derailed Obama’s campaign.
Liberal lawyer and lifetime Democrat Alan Dershowitz said he never would have campaigned for Obama had he seen him with Farrakhan.
