The AJC received dozens of letters to the editor on the controversial oratory of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the subsequent speech by Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama. Some of those letters were published in Friday's @issue print edition. To accommodate more reader viewpoints we have published this special online edition of letters to the editor:

Poisoning minds of generations to come

The really sad thing about Rev. Wright is his poisoning a countless generations to come with disrespect, discouragement and devalued lives.

As usual, the little minds are corrupted forever, because they heard the words of Rev. Wright, not the word of God's forgiveness, redemption and hope. Shame on you Rev. Wright.

DON RUANE. Ruane is director of Voter Imposed Term Limits, Inc.

You can choose your minister

Sen. Obama says he can no more disown his minister than he can disown his grandmother. I disagree. You have no choice about your grandparents. You do, however, have a choice about your minister. Sen. Obama made his decision. Come November, the voters will make their decision.

GEORGE C. PETTRONE, Snellville

Come on, people. Let's be real

As Bill Cosby would say " Come On People". Let us get back to the business at hand, it is not about Sen. Barack Obama vs. The Rev Jeremiah Wright and whether or not he should leave the church and not associate with him. Let's be real. Who among us with families/friends/associates have not heard racial demagoguery and hate spoken somewhere in our midst? And did we disown our family for it or not associate with our friends because of their views? How many of us could answer yes to that question? We can either make a choice to get out of earshot or stay and form our own opinion about the topic. After all, this is a country with freedom of speech. We don't have to agree with everything we hear or be inundated with other people's opinions, however harsh they may be. Life it too short and we definitely have bigger fish to fry.

ALICIA HARRISON, Atlanta

About-face — not an epiphany

Barack Obama is truly a great orator who can deliver the best of speeches and attempts to portray himself as the candidate of change and integrity who wants to bring America together. Yet this man's first reaction to the outrage was to lie and say he was not in attendance at those sermons. Again, not an epiphany but proof of his attendance forced him to do an about-face. Twentyyears of belonging to this church and acceptance of a vulgar, racist pastor who preached hatred cannot be accepted. This is a pastor who Obama himself described as his friend, spiritual adviser, mentor and confidant. It strains credibility to believe anything but that Barack Obama was comfortable with that church and that pastor. His attempt now to distance himself from all that is solely a political necessity. While Obama has shown that he is not a candidate of change, integrity and hardly the candidate to bring America together as a color-bind society he is still a great speaker and orator.

PAUL KANITRA, Greensboro, Ga.

Two bigger questions

After reading reader comments in Friday's @issue of the AJC, I am struck by how not one reader has grasped two bigger questions in the Obama-Wright controversy. One, in his 20-year membership in this divisive church, why hasn't Barack Obama once encouraged inclusive dialogue, as he is now proclaiming he will do if elected president? That would have been an excellent place to start if he wasn't like-minded. In not speaking out against this derision, he appears to support, if not actually agree with Pastor Wright's inflammatory views.

Two, knowing these views and Obama's loyalty to this Pastor / father figure, my paramount worry, should Obama become our next president, is this: Paraphrasing Obama's own words that he penned in one of his books is that, to date, Obama admits to never having made a political decision without first consulting his pastor and confidant, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Would you be comfortable with Obama making decisions based on this man's advice? Are you willing to support an Obama-Wright presidency? This should scare the ever-loving

pants off of all of us.

PATRICIA WALLS, Sandy Springs

Obama answered the wrong question

Did I miss it or did Obama elude the real question about his association with the Rev. Wright? It seems to me the question is not so much race-related as it is a question of judgment. Obama exhibited poor judgment in staying in a church more than 20 years listening to bigoted, anti-American vitriol. Obama wants us to see him as a leader. Yet, as a father he subjected his children to years of the most un-Christian messages I've ever heard from a pastor. What kind of judgment does this reflect from a supposed leader? If I left my child in a hot car on a summer day for 30 minutes, I would be in police custody. However, he can leave his children in this type of church for years without any consequence? By making the issue about race, Obama is able to be seen as victim of the issue. He side-stepped the more important question judgment. To answer that question he would have had to play the role of responsible adult.

STEVE WELDON, Suwanee

Did Rev. Wright sound like Jesus?

When all the debate about Barack Obama and his pastor fades away, one question will remain. Does what Pastor Wright preached from the pulpit sound like Jesus? For 20 years Barack Obama voted yes with his presence, his gifts and his silence. What do you think?

J. FLEMING, Jasper

A great gift to the nation

The courage and candor with which Barack Obama spoke about race and religion in this country in his Tuesday speech was a great gift to this nation, showing us how to address sensitive, even inflammatory issues with intelligence and dignity. As I listened, I thought that those who have criticized him, underestimate the power of his drive to reconcile many kinds of divisions. If he can talk to the heads of foreign governments with the same honesty, temperance and forthrightness that characterized his recent speech, we just might have a chance at real diplomacy. An American leader who tells the truth without flinching, faces difficult issues squarely, and challenges others to join him in a move toward cooperation will surely regain the respect of the rest of the world.

BETH D. BIRON, Dalton

We've already had a dialogue on race

If Barack Obama thinks we still need "a dialogue on race," he must have slept through all of his 46 years.

Other than sex, race has been "dialogued" during the last half-century more than any subject on the planet. Books, movies, speeches, plays, debates, essays, protest rallies, TV specials, news stories, documentaries, editorials and Websites have been devoted to it, world without end. A month of the calendar year is officially set aside to dwell on its history in eye-glazing detail. An army of preachers, lawyers, politicians and (other) comedians have made careers of denouncing it. Entire university departments have been created for its study. If you Google "race," as in ethnicity, you get 310 million hits.

Personally, I don't see many remnants of the bigotry that were prevalent 50 years ago. But even if a few still remain, a reluctance to talk about the subject certainly isn't one of them.

JOE WILLIAMS, Douglasville

Speaking up for Jeremiah Wright

Although I disagree vehemently with his remarks, I feel compelled to speak up for Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's pastor. I believe most commentators have been unfair in not recognizing the prophetic background for some of his remarks. I am a 79-year-old white Baptist pastor who grew up in Atlanta.

The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah condemned and pronounced God's judgment on the foreign policy of his nation, the greed of wealthy land and slave owners, the hypocrisy of the nation's religious leaders, denounced the military stance of his nation, declared that the nation had brought upon itself the disasters it was facing because of their sin and disobedience to God (that's its chickens had come home to roost). He even went to so far as to tell the soldiers who were defending their city to lay down their arms for they were fighting against God's decree of judgment against the nation. The difference was that he was not preaching to an audience clapping and supporting him. He was jailed several time, beaten, cursed, faced attempts to murder him, dropped in a cistern to starve to death, yet never stopped calling the people to repentance, to accept God's judgment, and to keep hoping and believing in a new future yet to come.

REV. D. PERRY GINN, Decatur

Grace under fire?

Grace under fire is a good thing ("Obama shows grace under fire," Cynthia Tucker column, March 19). But being graceful and articulate is not going to impress the jihadists. If the voters give our soldiers a commander-in-chief who our enemies don't fear, concerns for political correctness will be the least of our concerns.

JACK FRANKLIN, Conyers

Hypocrisy from all sides

Everyone is shocked and outraged over the Rev. Wright. However, for some reason people forget about the hatred and vitriol that come from the likes of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and other leaders of the religious right. How soon we forget them blaming 9/11 on everyone not white and Christian. New Orleans, well, they blame that on God being angry at gays/lesbians. Now John McCain has decided to court those folks even after calling them agents of intolerance. One can see the hypocrisy from all sides on this issue.

JEFF GILLESPIE , Decatur

Talk the talk, walk the walk

Regarding Friday's @ issue" and "The senator's pastoral problem" (@issue, March 20): I find it difficult to believe Barack Obama did not know the true nature of his pastor's beliefs and feelings as shown on the tapes on TV after a 20-year affiliation. However, more important to me is some of the underlying philosophy of this religion, namely black liberation and black power. These concepts are divisive and exclusive, rather than uniting and inclusive; as we all know, one of Obama's primary themes is about uniting people. I also find it difficult to believe he can be a true uniter after being an active member of this church for 20 years — a church that stands for the opposite. I find it almost amusing he is now talking big about racism — which sounds good — but does not match his behavior: Talk the talk and walk the walk.

PAMELA WOOD, Decatur

Actions do speak louder than words

Recent campaign rhetoric shouts that words don't count, action does. Now we're told that words do matter — not Sen. Obama's own words but those of his pastor.

So what are the results of Reverend Wright's actions, his ministry? No one has called his church a hotbed of racial violence; no one has shown any evidence that it is a separatist, white-hating congregation. Quite the contrary. It is known for its welcoming atmosphere and humanitarian social actions: housing the homeless, feeding the hungry, helping young families with daycare, ministering to those in prison and those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

Further, Rev. Wright is credited with inspiring in a young black man of his congregation the faith that moves him to stand tall in the midst of a fiercely fought presidential campaign, to promote healing and unity in a racially divided nation.

Maybe, after all, actions do speak louder than words.

RALPH ROUGHTON, Atlanta

Like his fellow travelers in the neo-conservative movement, in his column 'The Senator's pastoral problem', Thomas Sowell attempts to smear Barack Obama with half-truths, implied facts, loaded phrases and quotes from books written by other conservatives (@issue, March 20). As in the past, these tactics seem to work all too well. The voting public can only expect to see more of this as we get closer to the election.

A short list of the loaded phrases in Sowell's smear article include “con man,” “Soviet show trials,” “useful idiots” and “black extremist church.” Being someone who makes his living writing articles, he knows these are phrases guaranteed to push people's buttons. Even though no direct charges are made, the result is one leaves the article with a feeling “something's not right'” about Obama. Researching the background of Shelby Steele, the “best selling author'” quoted, reveals he, like Sowell, is a research fellow with the Hoover Institution. A Google search shows this organization is a conservative think tank with connections to the Bush and other Republican administrations.

Is this a fair, impartial source? Hardly!

Too much is being made of the video of Jeremiah Wright's remarks in a sermon with the aim being to smear Obama by association. However, Barack's speech turns this potentially inflammatory issue into an opportunity for reflection and outreach. Any white folks who are surprised at the language in Wright's sermon do not understand the depth of the black community's frustration with the slow pace of their acceptance in American society. Wright was merely stating what many in the congregation feel. This is not “extremist.” It is a fact.

There is an obvious need for a discussion of race relations as they are today. Barack Obama has taken the high road by acknowledging this and not hiding behind political rhetoric. The path to reconciliation is open discussion and consideration of the other person's viewpoint. Unfortunately this does not seem to be the paradigm of the neo-con movement.

Our country has been driven to the brink of disaster by leaders who value doctrine, party loyalty, and winning at any cost over pragmatism and the greater good. A thoughtful, intelligent leader welcoming open discussion of difficult issues would be such a refreshing change over the dishonest politics of the current ruling party.

GARY HUNNICUTT, Lilburn

Bigotry is unveiled

It has been days since Sen. Obama delivered his speech. After reading, watching and listening to our political analysts, pundits, commentators, writers, etc., on the meaning and importance of his speech, what strikes me as the most important outcome of this historical event is the unveiling of the bigotry and bigots of this nation. Racism is what it is. It is interwoven into the fabric of our society from the time of our forefathers and will always be an issue, if allowed. Yet, what is most prevailing and has been exposed is the bigotry of this nation, the bigotry of our media, the bigots and bigotry of those whose allegiance has now left Sen. Obama, because of their uneasiness of who he is. Thank you, Sen. Obama. And "bigots" know thy name.

KIMBERLY A. PARRISH, Atlanta

Stay clear of such preachers

When I saw Jesse Jackson embrace Louis Farrakan publicly while running for the presidency, I knew immediately that he would lose. Now comes Barack Obama, another black who had an even better chance, who stayed clear of Farrakan, but now has been knocked down by another preacher spewing demagoguery, bigotry and hate. I hope that the next black who attempts [to run] will have learned to stay clear of such "preachers."

SAM WILLIAMS, Macon

As Americans, we are all privileged

A recent letter writer's credentials allow him to accept Rev. Wright's rhetoric in terms of homiletic style and prophetic zeal, but I see his message as an outdated diatribe that replaces fire and brimstone with victimization and blame ("Critics show their ignorance of rhetoric," @issue, March 19). Ministers who preach this negative message indoctrinate another generation, as evidenced by the bobbing heads of Trinity’s congregation. In his weakly apologetic speech, Sen. Obama reflects the same dishonest perspective, without the rhetoric. The idea that most white Americans are blessed with an inheritance, receive a superior education and privileged access to mortgages is simply not true. Most of us inherit little from our parents but their genes and a few sentimental treasures. Schools were desegregated long ago. Mortgage assistance programs are available to all races. When will this endless focus on race end? As Americans, we are all privileged and should be grateful.

ALICE BROWN PICKETT, Atlanta