Views » April 24, 2008 » Web Only

Bill Moyers Interviews Rev. Jeremiah Wright

By Bill Moyers

Excerpts from Jeremiah Wright’s first interview with a broadcast journalist since the controversy over his remarks and his relationship with Barack Obama are posted below. The interview will air on Bill Moyers Journal on Friday, April 25 at 9 pm on PBS. (Check local listings at www.pbs.org/moyers.)

Excerpt 1

REVEREND WRIGHT:
The persons who have heard the entire sermon understand the communication perfectly.

When something is taken like a sound bite for a political purpose and put constantly over and over again, looped in the face of the public. That’s not a failure to communicate. Those who are doing that are communicating exactly what they want to do, which is to paint me as some sort of fanatic or as the learned journalist from the New York Times called me, a “wackadoodle.”

It’s to paint me as something: “Something’s wrong with me. There’s nothing wrong with this country…for its policies. We’re perfect. Our hands are free. Our hands have no blood on them.” That’s not a failure to communicate. The message that is being communicated by the sound bites is exactly what those pushing those sound bites want to communicate.

BILL MOYERS:
What do you think they wanted to communicate?

REVEREND WRIGHT:
I think they wanted to communicate that I am unpatriotic, that I am un-American, that I am filled with hate speech, that I have a cult at Trinity United Church of Christ. And by the way, guess who goes to his church, hint, hint, hint? That’s what they wanted to communicate.

They know nothing about the church. They know nothing about our prison ministry. They know nothing about our food ministry. They know nothing about our senior citizens home. They know nothing about all we try to do as a church and have tried to do, and still continue to do as a church that believes what Martin Marty said, that the two worlds have to be together. And that the gospel of Jesus Christ has to speak to those worlds, not only in terms of the preached message on a Sunday morning but in terms of the lived-out ministry throughout the week.

BILL MOYERS:
What did you think when you began to see those very brief sound bites circulating as they did?

REVEREND WRIGHT:
I felt it was unfair. I felt it was unjust. I felt it was untrue. I felt for those who were doing that, were doing it for some very devious reasons.

Excerpt 2

BILL MOYERS:
Did you ever imagine that you would come to personify the black anger that so many whites fear?

REVEREND WRIGHT:
No. I did not. I’ve been preaching since I was ordained 41 years ago. I pointed out to some of the persons in Chicago who are in all of this, new to them that the stance I took in standing against apartheid along with our denomination back in the ’70s, and putting a “Free South Africa” sign in front of the church put me at odds with the government. Our denomination’s defense of the Wilmington Ten and Ben Chavis put me at odds with the establishment. So, being at odds with policies is nothing new to me.

The blowup and the blowing up of sermons preached 15, seven, six years ago and now becoming a media event, not the full sermon, but the snippets from the sermon and sound bite having made me the target of hatred, yes, that is something very new and something very, very unsettling.

Excerpt 3

BILL MOYERS:
Here is a man who came to see you 20 years ago. Wanted to know about the neighborhood. Barack Obama was a skeptic when it came to religion. He sought you out because he knew you knew about the community. You led him to the faith.

You performed his wedding ceremony. You baptized his two children. You were, for 20 years, his spiritual counsel. He has said that. And, yet, he, in that speech at Philadelphia, had to say some hard things about you. How did those words…how did it go down with you when you heard Barack Obama say those things?

REVEREND WRIGHT:
It went down very simply. He’s a politician, I’m a pastor. We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician. I say what I have to say as a pastor. But they’re two different worlds.

I do what I do. He does what politicians do. So that what happened in Philadelphia where he had to respond to the sound bytes, he responded as a politician.

Excerpt 4

BILL MOYERS:
In the 20 years that you’ve been his pastor, have you ever heard him repeat any of your controversial statements as his opinion?

REVEREND WRIGHT:
No. No. No. Absolutely not.

I don’t talk to him about politics. And so he had a political event, he goes out as a politician and says what he has to say as a politician. I continue to be a pastor who speaks to the people of God about the things of God.

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• Reader Comments

  Here is the url for an ABC News webpage containing the transcript of the original sermons.

  http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4719157&page=1

  Posted by Kuya on Apr 25, 2008 at 2:36 AM

  Best part of Obama’s candidacy? Hands down, for me, it was the parade of “friends” he has, the coddling by the media (until recently when the lid was blown off of Wright, Rezko, Ayers, Dohrn, Auchi etc.), and the empty rhetoric of Obama himself.  Add Black Liberation Theology to this and I felt as if I had been handed a glass filled with a lethal cocktail.  I started out as very impressed with Obama, seriously thinking about voting for him in spite of my long standing desire to see a woman finally take office as President. Seeing the press refuse, month after month, to challenge Obama while they mauled Clinton made me one angry white woman. Finding out that criticizing Obama left me open to charges of racism, well, that didn’t feel good either, but if I’m in Gerry Ferraro’s company then I’m in good company always.  But what I really owe Barack Obama is my own intellectual freedom. Finally, after years of allowing myself to be held hostage by the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, I have decided to throw out the liberal trash. And it’s liberating, being able to really think about issues without feeling my knee jerk and checking to see if I fell into line with “the liberal line.”  Feels so good, thanks Sen. Obama. And thank you, too, Bill Moyers. I’ve put over 30 years of respect for you into the same trash pile I dumped my respect for Ted Kennedy. This is women’s lib redux! Gentlemen, I salute you. I’m voting for the Babe. And if she’s not on the ballot, I’m voting against the Empty Suit!  Free at last, free at last!

  Posted by Mandelay on Apr 25, 2008 at 3:12 AM

  Seems to me that Wright has his roles all reversed.  He doesn’t appear to be doing much bible preaching, but lots of political ranting.  I remember having to bring a bible and a notebook and be constantly turning here and there and writing things down.  That’s pretty boring.

  On the other hand, Obama fits the role of preacher better.  He’s been advocating working together, finding common ground, etc. etc. 

  However, I’m finding that Wright is at least genuine, and stands by his statements, albeit IMHO also being disgusting and toxic to the young brains in his audiences.

  I don’t buy Obama’s evolving and evasive explanations for why he was so close to this guy for so long.  I once considered voting for him, but now ..... no way.  He’s striking me as less and less genuine every day.

  I’m pretty sure Moyers has often complained about right-wing pastors injecting politics into their preaching and congregations.  He seems to have no problem with Wright doing it.  Nothing like a little bias to spice up and flavor your journalism.  Plus, you only have to work half as hard.

  Posted by Natalie on Apr 25, 2008 at 9:57 PM

  I am not an Obama backer. I was a John Edwards supporter. But this has nothing to do with the Jeremiah Wright controversy.

  Reverend Wright said some very interesting things in the sermons that were excerpted by the media. I challenge everyone who reads this to find the YouTube videos that show the FULL sermons. If you do your research, it quickly becomes clear that what the media was portraying as “fanatical” and “hate speech” was TRUTH. 

  Part of the reason that middle class white people are so quick to buy into these sound bytes and turn against Obama is because Rev. Wright brought up the ugly, unvarnished, historically accurate truth of the way black Americans have been mistreated and white America hates to hear about it.  Reverend Wright addresses the sad truth that black Americans have to live with every day; they are still being mistreated.

  I don’t excuse Obama’s moving away from his friend and pastor. Wrong is wrong, even in politics. It would have been more gutsy to stick by him, though he refused to denounce him completely. HOWEVER, the political reality of the situation is that the media and our other “worthy” candidate, Ms. Clinton, are engaging in race-baiting. And the American people are, in large part, swallowing it whole. But Obama can’t say that; he has to perform his public penance and do damage control.

  IMHO, this whole mess has not made me question Obama as much as shown Hillary Clinton’s true colors. Her behavior has cheapened Ms. Clinton in my eyes and is just another example, heaped onto an already large pile, of the lengths that she will go to in order to win the prize she so dearly covets.

  Well, haven’t we had enough of these kinds of win-at-all costs politicians, yet? They show that they have no morals or standards because they repeatedly prove that, to them, the ends always justify the means. Then we vote for them because they are such fighters. This is bass-ackwards and that is why we get such horrible results.

  Reverend Wright is being demonized for telling the truth. His words are being cut down to bite-sized clips for the appetite of a public with a short attention span and his meaning is being twisted for political gain. He was used to switch the momentum in this race and now his life is being threatened by ignorant people who don’t know the first thing about him.

  This could happen to you. It can happen to anyone that comes up against the powerful in this country.  If you don’t believe it, I feel sorry for you because someday you will SEE it, but by then it may be too late to turn things around…

  Fight the power. NOW.

  Posted by Kansasliberal on Apr 26, 2008 at 2:12 AM

  So much of the commentary concerning Rev. Wright avoids looking at the truth of his statements. He points at the sins committed by this country as says, God damns this behavior, at points at christian scripture as proof. The jingoistic rejection of those statements reveal an ignorance of scripture and the moral standards we claim to embrace as a nation. I heard his comments again tonight and they made sense in their painful revelations of the truth. He asks us to reject a government that holds to such ideals, to change out of our understanding of the truth, if not the historical fact.

  Thank you Kansasliberal

  Posted by Baraka on Apr 26, 2008 at 4:12 AM

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