Once upon a time, The Obamas attended the church of Rev. Jeremiah Wright on Chicago’s south side. They did not end up living happily ever after. During his first presidential bid, Barack Obama and family chose to distance themselves after some of Wright’s remarks came under heavy scrutiny. A passionate proponent of Black liberation Theology, it wasn’t Wright’s first or last time speaking his truth. Here are 20 of Wright’s most controversial quotes.

1. “My daughter and granddaughter call him our Halfrican-American president – he don’t want to talk about reparations. … It’s not personal responsibility. It’s not ‘pull your pants up.’ Don’t get on Fox News and lecture Black men. You’re missing the point. Let’s talk about white-on-Black crime. Until we have a hard dialogue, it’s all gonna be superficial, ‘Kumbaya,’ ‘We Shall Overcome.’”

2. “The government gives them [African Americans] 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. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”

3. “We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye. … We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”

4. “It just came to me within the past few weeks, y’all, why so many folks are hating on Barack Obama. He doesn’t fit the model. He ain’t white, he ain’t rich, and he ain’t privileged. Hillary fits the mold. Europeans fit the mold. Giuliani fits the mold. Rich white men fit the mold. Hillary never had a cab whiz past her and not pick her up because her skin was the wrong color. Hillary never had to worry about being pulled over in her car as a Black man driving in the wrong. … I am sick of Negroes who just do not get it. Hillary was not a Black boy raised in a single parent home, Barack was. Barack knows what it means to be a Black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people. Hillary can never know that. Hillary ain’t never been called a nigger. Hillary has never had her people defined as non-persons.”

5. Bill Clinton “did the same thing to us that he did to Monica Lewinsky.”

6. “Them Jews ain’t going to let him (Obama) talk to me … I told my baby daughter that he’ll talk to me in five years when he’s a lame duck, or in eight years when he’s out of office. … They will not let him to talk to somebody who calls a spade what it is. … I said from the beginning: He’s a politician; I’m a pastor. He’s got to do what politicians do.”

7. “Ethnic cleansing is going on in Gaza. Ethnic cleansing (by) the Zionist is a sin and a crime against humanity, and they don’t want Barack talking like that because that’s anti-Israel.”

Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 49: Jamilah Lemieux Part 1:

Jamarlin talks to digital media executive, activist and author Jamilah Lemieux. They discuss her article, “The Power And Fragility Of Working In Black Media” in the Columbia Journalism Review and Lamont Hill being fired by CNN for his comments on Palestine. They also discuss whether Michelle Obama’s words on Rev. Jeremiah Wright in her book “Becoming” were a false equivalence.

8. “Regret for what … that the media went back five, seven, 10 years and spent $4,000 buying 20 years’ worth of sermons to hear what I’ve been preaching for 20 years? … Regret for preaching like I’ve been preaching for 50 years? Absolutely none.”

9. “Of course, I voted for him (Obama) – he’s my son. I’m proud of him. I’ve got five biological kids. They all make mistakes and bad choices. I haven’t stopped loving any of them. … He made mistakes. He made bad choices. I’ve got kids who listen to their friends. He listened to those around him. I did not disown him.”

10. “One of the reasons America has never confessed to its original sin is that confession means repentance, and repentance means you gotta pay. … That’s not Black people getting a check next week – it’s structural issues (like housing covenants and redlining).”

11. “We got a lot of sheepdogs in the African American community.” 

12. “I heard Donald Trump say if you’re here illegally you need to go back. Let’s start in the 1400s! … You want to talk about thugs and rapists? Georgia was founded as a colony for criminals!”

13. “The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied.”

14. “There’s white racist DNA running through the synapses of his or her brain tissue. They will kill their own kind, defend the enemies of their kind or anyone who is perceived to be the enemy of the milky white way of life.”

15. “White folk done took this country. You’re in their home, and they’re gonna let you know it. You are not now, nor have you ever been, nor will you ever be a brother to white folk and if you do not realize that, you are in serious trouble.”

Sources include: The Guardian, Daily Press, The Atlantic, Brainy Quote and Inspiring Quotes.