Black pastor stirs controversy ahead of Obama’s Morehouse commencement speech

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President Obama will deliver the commencement speech at Morehouse College — the storied predominantly black men’s college an alma mater of Dr. Martin Luther King — on Sunday. But he won’t find a total respite from controversy.

As Allison Samuels writes in the Daily Beast, Obama’s speech is already being upstaged by controversial comments about the president by a prominent black pastor from Philadelphia. Samuels writes:

While Sunday will mark the first time an African-American president will deliver the commencement college address to a graduating class of all male African-Americans, one alumni of Morehouse felt compelled to pen an scathing editorial about the president for to those “too’ taken in by the symbolic meaning of it all. Writing in the Philadelphia Tribune earlier in April, Pastor Kevin Johnson from Philadelphia didn’t hold anything back in a piece entitled, “A President for Everyone, Except for Black People.” The op-ed compared the number of African Americans who hold senior positions in Obama’s cabinet with earlier administrations and found the result unacceptable. Two of the cabinet’s four African Americans and both of its Hispanic members from Obama’s first term have announced they are leaving. Only one of the two Asian Americans who served during the first Obama term remains.

Demographic strategist Donna Brazile said that with his inflammatory comments, Johnson was playing a familiar role for community activists and pastors. She added that White House office numbers don’t always tell the entire story.

“This president has done a great deal in choosing and appointing a diverse group in the White House and on the Supreme Court,” said Brazile. “But civil rights activists and pastors such as Johnson will always want more and that’s their role and that’s fine. The next president will be expected to do even more than President Obama has. But let’s not forget what Attorney General Eric Holder is going through and what a lot of minorities are forced to go through when the are tapped for positions. It can be brutal the scrunity and many turned that opportunity down. So it’s not always what it seems.”

Still Johnson’s sharp words made much sharper by the fact that the pastor was also scheduled to speak at a Morehouse baccalaureate event just the day before Obama momentous speech for the graduates. Johnson’s tersely written piece quickly threatened to derail the historic weekend for many Morehouse alumni and African-Americans thrilled to welcome the first African American President in a year that commemorates the 150th year of the Emancipation Proclamation, Morehouse’s 100th anniversary, and the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream’’ speech.L

Read the whole piece at The Daily Beast.