Politics

Bishop McKenzie, Democratic convention speaker, spoke at Jeremiah Wright’s retirement

Vince Coglianese Editorial Director
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Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie, a speaker Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, is a close associate of Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Church bulletins obtained by The Daily Caller show that McKenzie was one of 15 speakers — including Father Michael Pfleger and Cornel West — who spoke at Wright’s retirement ceremony as pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in February 2008.

Wright has previously sung McKenzie’s praises, identifying her in a 2005 article for his church’s bulletin as a fellow “liberation preacher” — unlike “cooperation preachers,” which include blacks who historically “‘ran and told Massa’ what ‘dem darkies’ were getting ready to do,” wrote Wright.

Wright wrote that “cooperation preachers” supported President George W. Bush’s “white racist conservative agenda” by appearing at a White House event alongside the president.

And in 2007, McKenzie was again listed as a guest speaker at Wright’s Trinity United.

Wright rose to national prominence during the 2008 presidential election as President Barack Obama’s pastor of many years.

Audio of Wright’s sermons featured the minister imploring his congregation to have contempt for America.

“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people,” Wright famously boomed.

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Wright declared that “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”

The harsh nature of the media-dominating sermons led then-Sen. Obama to publicly break ties with Wright.

“His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church,” Obama said in April 2008. “They certainly don’t portray accurately my values and beliefs.”

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