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GUEST: Kevin Gray, civil rights organizer in South Carolina and former president of the ACLU of South Carolina, author of the forthcoming book, “The Decline of Black Politics: From Malcolm X to Barack Obama”

Newly revealed videos of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s spiritual mentor, are fodder for a firestorm over racial issues in this year’s election. Wright had been a preacher at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago for twenty years – he married Barack and Michelle Obama, baptized the Obamas’ two daughters, and is credited by Obama for the title of his book, “The Audacity of Hope.” Among his controversial comments on race are the following excerpt from a 2003 sermon: “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 …God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human.” Wright has also said that the 9/11 attacks were an outcome of US foreign policy. Obama has distanced himself from Wright calling the reverend’s comments “stupid,” and delivered a speech just this morning in Pennsylvania in response to the Wright controversy on the themes of “race, politics, and unifying our country.”