Wright: Media made granddaughter’s entry to FAMU difficult

Jeremiah Wright, the retired pastor of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, says Election 2008’s media coverage surrounding inflammatory comments he made from his pulpit made his granddaughter’s first day at FAMU very difficult.

“The day I took Jamila to campus, FOX News was on the sidewalk taking my picture,” Wright said in a recent Washington Post interview. “My granddaughter got into a fistfight at FAMU because people only know the press narrative about Jeremiah Wright," he said. "The press didn't care what they did to my family. They ruined their senior year in high school. They were at the senior prom, the graduation, waiting on something to try to destroy [then Democratic nomination candidate Barack Obama].”

The relationship between Wright and Obama, a former member of his church, strained and broke during the campaign. After newscasts aired out-of-context statements Wright had made during his sermons and Obama accused him of having “a profoundly distorted view of this country,” the minister went on the offensive.

In trying to explain the cultural differences between the forms of preaching in black and white churches, Wright compared band performances at predominantly white universities versus those at HBCUs such as FAMU and Grambling State (two of the bands that were later invited to perform in the Inaugural Parade along with Howard's).

Obama was not happy with Wright’s response to the media-generated controversy and eventually cut his ties with the minister. A Rasmussen survey later found that 58 percent of Americas believed Obama denounced Wright for “political convenience.” Nonetheless, Wright continued to publicly support Obama’s candidacy.

Wright expressed sadness that much of the country is impatient with Obama’s efforts to lift America out of the rocky situation he inherited.

"It is unrealistic to think that one person can change the mess that this country has gotten into, but to pick on him is like picking on one of my kids," Wright said. "I have been knowing him for 20 years.”

“I have not stopped loving him because of what the press did, and to see him beat up on because of things he is not responsible for is painful.”