Running head: BARACK OBAMA AND THE CHALLENGE OF JEREMIAH WRIGHT
Writing Assignment #2 for EDLP 715
Philip W. Holmes
Virginia Commonwealth University EdD in Leadership Cohort 4
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BARACK OBAMA AND THE CHALLENGE OF JEREMIAH WRIGHT
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Writing Assignment #2 for EDLP 715
In early 2008, Barack Obama’s presidential primary campaign was surging. Dismissed
by many at first because of his inexperience, by the spring of 2008 his delegate count eclipsed
Hilary Clinton’s, even though she had long been touted as the all but certain Democratic Party
nominee (Rowland & Jones, 2011). Though he was the first-ever Black presidential frontrunner, Obama downplayed his race and the historic nature of his campaign, and by casting
Black voter concerns as analogous to voter concerns across the party, he reassured White voters
and established himself as a viable mainstream candidate (Utley & Heyse, 2009).
Just as Obama was edging Clinton in the primaries, video recordings of the sermons of
Jeremiah Wright came to light. The pastor of Obama’s church in Chicago, Wright’s angry and
provocative beliefs about race in America were replayed by mainstream media and were watched
by thousands on YouTube. Commentators across the political spectrum questioned Obama’s
relationship with this firebrand, and wondered how to balance Obama’s careful, non-racial image
with the reality of his pastor’s fierce and unforgiving racial rhetoric. Many speculated that the
crisis might detail his historic campaign (Dumm, 2008; Oliha, 2011; Rowland & Jones, 2011).
Obama faced what Drath (2001) called an adaptive challenge: that is, a challenge that
neither Obama nor his campaign had faced before, which resisted clear or consistent definitions
or interpretations, for which they had no consensus-building response, and which they would not
be able to resolve without first undergoing fundamental change. Wright’s videos fomented a
national discussion about racial matters that Obama’s presidential campaign – and in fact every
other previous presidential campaign – had up to that point been able to avoid. That national
discussion starkly exposed the various and often conflicting ways in which Americans viewed
the problem of race. For the first time, a front-runner’s presidential candidacy was threatened by
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race – by this complicated, multifaceted, and nearly intransigent problem of American life
(Dumm, 2008; Oliha, 2011; Rowland & Jones, 2011; Utley & Heyse, 2009).
Obama rose to this adaptive challenge, and crafted a major speech that simultaneously
validated the Black experience behind Wright’s sermons, reinforced his own non-racial stance,
and salvaging his historic campaign (Dumm, 2008; Oliha, 2011; Rowland & Jones, 2011; Utley
& Heyse, 2009).
Obama the Non-Racial Candidate
Most Americans were introduced to Barack Obama when he gave the Keynote Address at
the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Though only a first-time US senator, his soaring
speech, which focused on the commonalities among Americans, captured the attention of many
who were weary of red state and blue state divisions. Obama’s words have inspired much
popular and scholarly attention ever since (Utley & Heyse, 2009).
In February of 2007, just three years after his Keynote Address, Barack Obama
announced that he was a candidate for president. Despite the good will that his Keynote Address
had generated, few felt that he could prevail against Hilary Clinton. But, by March of the next
year, Obama had more delegates than Clinton, and was raising more money (Rowland & Jones,
2011). His campaign for the party’s nomination seemed unstoppable, and for the first time in
American history, a Black presidential candidate was the front-runner.
While Obama benefited from his historic status, his inclination to de-emphasize his race
also made him less threatening to White voters and enabled him to continue to present himself as
the candidate who could bring all Americans together (Rowland & Jones, 2011). Other “firstever” Black political candidates – such as Douglas Wilder in Virginia and David Dinkins in New
York City – presented themselves to their mostly White electorates in much the same way. All of
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these men de-emphasized racial differences, focused on policies and programs that went beyond
race, and dimmed the lights on the remaining racial tensions in this culture. But, Obama was the
first Black presidential candidate to absorb the lessons of Black regional politicians like Wilder
and Dinkins and apply them to a nationwide campaign (Utley & Heyse, 2009). Obama skirted
any substantive mention of race or racial issues, trumpeted the notion of racial harmony, and
“maintained a post-racial rhetorical stance that appealed to very diverse audiences” (Utley &
Heyse, 2009, p. 154).
The Challenge of Jeremiah Wright
Obama’s ability to sidestep questions of race was derailed by the discovery of the
recorded sermons of his Chicago pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Wright’s indictment of America’s
past and present treatment of minorities at home, and of people of color abroad, included a loud
refrain of “God damn America,” and was soon posted to YouTube and other web sites (Utley &
Heyse, 2009). The thousands of viewer comments in response to his sermons illuminated the
starkly different ways in which Americans viewed racism in America. These views ranged from
outright agreement with Wright’s condemnations, to the belief that racism was no longer an issue
in America, and that Blacks who clung to the notion that racism still existed were simply trying
to shirk personal responsibility for improving their own situations in life (Oliha, 2011).
While many Americans were dismayed by Wright’s sermons and by the loud, conflictridden, and often distasteful debate that ensued, others recognized that something powerful and
important was occurring in the national landscape, and lauded the opportunity to have a serious
and high-level conversation about race in America (Oliha, 2011). Dumm (2008) considered the
issue of the Jeremiah Wright videotapes as another in a long line of “unscripted moments in
American presidential races that condense important themes of the campaign,” and included the
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controversy in the company of such powerful and iconic political moments as the first KennedyNixon debate (Dumm, 2008, p. 317). Oliha went further, noting that the “… Jeremiah Wright
media spectacle created space in the public sphere for debate over the nation’s identity – past
present and future” (Oliha, 2011, p. 268).
Mindful of the impact of this controversy on his campaign, Obama quickly condemned
Wright’s sermons and noted that Wright was his pastor, and not a member of his campaign. But,
his condemnation was not enough, and the controversy grew (Utley & Heyse, 2009; Rowland &
Jones, 2011).
Obama’s Adaptive Challenge
Obama’s ties to Wright might have ended his campaign for the democratic nomination,
and thus made a more formal response to the controversy inevitable (Oliha, 2011; Rowland &
Jones, 2011). But, how should he respond? If he repudiated the assumption beneath Wright’s
accusations – if he tried to assert that racial problems did not persist in 21st century America – he
would lose credibility with many of his supporters and appear to be just another poll-watching
politician, all too ready to do or say anything for the sake of an election (Rowland & Jones,
2011). At the same time, the broad dissemination of Wright’s sermons had exposed Americans’
widely divergent views of race and racism, and merging these views would not be easy.
Obama’s response had to go beyond the mechanics of the immediate debate, and “…combine a
discussion of the controversy with a consideration of larger issues of race…” (Rowland & Jones,
2011, p. 130). It had to connect, somehow, the disparate and often directly opposite views about
race and racism that many Americans held (Oliha, 2011).
It would be difficult to overstate the singular difficulty of this predicament. Barack
Obama was the first Black presidential front-runner. He had achieved that success in large part
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because of his inclination to skirt the topics of his race and racial matters. At the edge of his
epochal success as a Black presidential candidate, both the voters who supported him and the
voters who opposed him were suddenly doused with images and sound bites from Jeremiah
Wright that directly challenged Obama’s carefully constructed and maintained image of racial
neutrality. In the wake of the Wright videos, disparate and conflicting interpretations of the
racial situation in America were being generated, and were crossing over each other in the
mainstream media and in chat rooms and blogs across the country. Many commentators were
sure that Obama would not be able to respond to it, and survive (Dumm, 2008; Rowland &
Jones, 2011; Oliha, 2011; Utley & Heyse, 2009).
But, of course, Obama the candidate did survive. Faced with an adaptive challenge, he
adapted. He had risen to nationwide front-runner status in large part propelled and protected by
his “post-racial” identity (Utley & Heyse, 2009). Now that status was imperiled by stark
evidence (constantly replayed on YouTube and analyzed by national media) that a close personal
connection was vehemently not post-racial. Obama had hardly ever mentioned his own racial
heritage or opinions in the earlier portion of the campaign, and indeed seemed by many
commentators to be uncomfortable with the topic (Utley & Heyse, 2009). Obama and his
campaign staff understood that only a changed candidate would be able to rise to this new and
unprecedented challenge, and the evidence of this change would have to be presented to the
American public; thus, “… a nationally broadcast speech was needed to address this key
exigence, perhaps the pivotal moment of the campaign” (Frank, 2009, p. 168). Obama told his
aides as he prepared to deliver this crucial speech that if he failed to win over the electorate,
“…at least I’ll have said what I think needs to be said” (Frank, 2009, p. 168).
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Obama had united the nation, if only for a few hours, with his 2004 Keynote Address.
With much greater personal and political stakes, he had to find a way to unite it again.
A More Perfect Union
Much has been written about the actual content of Barack Obama’s “A More Perfect
Union” speech, presented in Philadelphia in the spring of 2008 (Utley & Heyse, 2009). That the
speech was successful in rescuing his campaign from the tar pit into which the Jeremiah Wright
controversy had flung it is not in question. Utley and Heyse stated that “Barack Obama’s ‘A
More Perfect Union’ was an appropriate and successful response to a political-personal crisis,”
and noted that “… Obama successfully maintained a post-racial rhetorical stances that appealed
to extremely diverse audiences” (Utley & Heyse, 2009, p. 154). Rowland and Jones (2011)
stated that, “(a)fter delivering the speech, the controversy [of Obama’s relationship with
Jeremiah Wright] not only largely dissipated, but Obama was praised by many for honestly
confronting the most controversial and emotional issue in American politics, race” (Rowland &
Jones, 2011, p. 125). While critics from the right and the left excoriated Obama for going both
too far and not far enough, respectively, all agreed that the candidate who never seemed able to
talk about race, had dealt with that very subject so well in a single speech that the potential
damage from Jeremiah Wright’s video had been wholly vitiated (Frank, 2009).
Conclusion
Barack Obama rose to prominence with his Keynote Address at the Democratic National
Convention in 2004, and came from behind to capture the delegate lead in the 2008 Democratic
Party presidential primaries. Key to his success was a “post-racial” political identity that
capitalized on his historic candidacy (the first-ever Black front-runner), but at the same time
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downplayed his racial identity, skirted direct discussion of race and racial conflict in America,
and increased his appeal with White voters.
Then, videotapes of the fiery oratory of his Chicago pastor were uncovered. Jeremiah
Wright’s powerful and inflammatory condemnations of America’s racism imperiled Obama’s
candidacy, and the debate that followed exposed wide rifts in how Americans view this country’s
racial problems. This debate about race and racism in America constituted an adaptive challenge
for Obama and his “post-racial” candidacy, and forced him to step outside of his “post-racial”
identity. Obama crafted a national address that placed the Jeremiah Wright controversy into a
context about race and racism in America that aligned with his own feelings and experiences, and
that both his supporters and his opponents could understand and accept. It also salvaged his
historic candidacy.
BARACK OBAMA AND THE CHALLENGE OF JEREMIAH WRIGHT
References
Drath, W. (2001). The deep blue sea: Rethinking the source of leadership. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Dumm, T. L. (2008). Barack Obama and the souls of white folk. Communication &
Critical/Cultural Studies, 5, 317-320.
Frank, D. A. (2009). The prophetic voice and the face of the other in Barack Obama’s “A More
Perfect Union” address, March 18, 2008. Rhetoric and Public Affairs, 12, 167-194.
Oliha, H. (2011). In love and war: Racial disharmony and America’s discordant racial
articulations in the wake of the Jeremiah Wright media spectacle. Journal of
Multicultural Discourses, 6, 257-271.
Rowland, R. C., & Jones, J.M. (2011). One dream: Barack Obama, race, and the American
Dream. Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 14, 125-153.
Utley, E.A., & Heyse, A.L. (2009). Barack Obama's (im)perfect union: An analysis of the
strategic successes and failures in his speech on race. The Western Journal of Black
Studies, 33, 153-163.
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