By: Ronald Kessler
In his speech on race, Barack Obama tried to explain away his longtime minister’s denunciations of America by saying that for blacks of his generation, memories of “humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away.”
But an examination by Newsmax of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.’s background reveals that Obama’s characterization of his upbringing is mythology.
Described by Obama as his sounding board and mentor for more than two decades, Wright was born in Philadelphia in 1941. He lived in a racially mixed section called Germantown, which consisted of homes on broad tree-lined streets in northwest Philadelphia. The owners then were middle-class families.
For 62 years, Wright’s father, the Rev. Jeremiah Alvesta Wright, was pastor at Grace Baptist Church of Germantown. He was one of the first blacks to receive a degree from the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.
Wright’s mother, Mary Elizabeth Henderson Wright, was a schoolteacher. She was the first black to teach an academic subject at Roosevelt Junior High, the first to teach at Germantown High, and the first to teach at the Philadelphia High School for Girls. She became vice principal of Girls High in 1968.
Rather than attend the more racially mixed Germantown High School at 40 East High St., Wright traveled a few miles to the elite Central High School at 1700 West Olney Ave., graduating in 1959. Opened in 1838, Central High has a distinguished past and admits only highly-qualified applicants who are privileged to attend from all over the city. It is comparable to the Bronx High School of Science and Boston Latin School, both public schools known for academic excellence.
When Wright attended Central High, the student body was 90 percent white, according to students who attended around the same time. At least three-quarters of the students were Jewish. Former students of the period say racial tension did not exist.
Bill Cosby, who attended the school until transferring to Germantown High, has referred to Central as a “wonderful” school. In contrast to Wright, Cosby has denounced blacks who take refuge in self-pitying victimhood and seek to blame whites for problems in the black community.
“Central High was a marvelous academic environment,” says Tod Mammuth, who graduated in 1965 and is now a Philadelphia-area lawyer. “You had to have high academic credentials to be accepted and a high IQ score. Many later said it was more rigorous than college. We had no racial friction.”
In college, “I was so far advanced from the normal kids, it was almost unbelievable,” says H. Yale Gutnick, who graduated from Central High in 1960 and is a Pittsburgh lawyer. “In my freshman year, I didn’t have to do anything. I had already read most of what we had to read in English class, and I was equally advanced in the other academic areas.”
The 211th class yearbook described Wright as a respected member of the class.
“Always ready with a kind word, Jerry is one of the most congenial members of the 211,” the yearbook said. “His record in Central is a model for lower class [younger] members to emulate.”
Saying Wright can be compared to the school handbook’s description of “an educated man,” the description said Wright was “the epitome of what Central endeavors to imbue in its students.”
Next to a photo of Wright wearing black-rimmed glasses, the yearbook listed seven extra-curricular activities, including junior varsity football, band, school orchestra, and swing band.
In contrast to Wright’s comfortable upbringing, Morton A. Klein, who also attended Central High around the same time, lived in a poor, virtually all-black section called West Oak Lane.
“Four times a year, we would go to get big boxes of used clothing that was our wardrobe for the year. I never resented it. I was thrilled with my clothes,” says Klein, who was an economist in the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations and is now president of the Zionist Organization of America.
