Obama's Former Pastor to Keynote ADC Gala

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The controversial religious leader Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., who spoke last weekend at the “Justice or Else” rally commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March in Washington, DC, will be the keynote speaker at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of Michigan’s 33rd annual gala next month.

The gala will be held at 6 p.m. Friday, Nov. 13, at Byblos Banquet Hall, 7258 Chase Road, Dearborn.

Wright, an author and religious leader who was a longtime pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ of Chicago, is credited with creating 70 ministries, including prison, domestic violence, information technology and Africa ministries.

He was once President Obama’s pastor, but was not invited to join the president’s administration after the two fell out in 2008 over what Obama, then a senator, blasted as anti-American. Obama had intermittently attended the church from 1988 to 2008,

Wright is known for taking on controversial topics, such as income inequality between white and black Americans and the inaccuracy of African-American history taught in public schools.

At the Justice or Else rally, organized to channel some of the energy of the Black Lives Matter movement, Wright angered many when he declared “Jesus was a Palestinian” in his comparison of the struggles of Native Americans to Palestinians’.

“The same issue is being fought today and has been fought since 1948, and historians are carried back to the 19th century ... when the original people, the Palestinians — and please remember, Jesus was a Palestinian — the Palestinian people had the Europeans come and take their country,” Wright said.

He also drew comparisons between youths in Palestine and Ferguson, MO, where riots broke out last year over the shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by a Darren Wilson, a white police officer.

“The youth in Ferguson and the youth in Palestine have united together to remind us that the dots need to be connected,” Wright said. “And what Dr. (Martin Luther) King said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, has implications for us as we stand beside our Palestinian brothers and sisters, who have been done one of the most egregious injustices in the 20th and 21st centuries.”

Wright also accused Israel of being an “apartheid state” at the rally.

“As we sit here, there is an apartheid wall being built twice the size of the Berlin Wall in height, keeping Palestinians off of illegally occupied territories, where the Europeans have claimed that land as their own,” Wright said. “Palestinians are saying ‘Palestinian lives matter.’ We stand with you, we support you, we say God bless you.”

Ticket prices and reservation information for the ADC gala is available online at adcmich@adc.org or by calling (313) 581-1201.

» Photo: Getty Images