Week 9 Paper

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Recommended: How the media influence public opinion

There has been much debate over the reason why a Philadelphia Pastor was uninvited to speak at one of the only “all-male historically black college in the nation” (Gammage, 2013). An article in the McClatchy – Tribune Business News is the focus of the debated controversy that surrounds the Philadelphia Pastor’s canceled speech; a speech that has a shared stage with the President of the United States.
I believe this article should not have made news at all; after all it is not the first time someone’s speech gets canceled. The debate in the article is the reason why the author claims the pastor’s speech got canceled in the first place. The author of the article claims that “according to a group of alumni, the Rev. Kevin Johnson, senior pastor of Bright Hope Baptist Church in North Philadelphia, was disinvited from speaking at Morehouse College because he wrote a newspaper column critical of President Obama's administration” (McClatchy –Tribune Business News, 2013). I believe Rev. Kevin Johnson is being attacked for criticizing the Obama administration of not having enough African Americans in his cabinet. The reverend is clearly exercising his freedom of speech and Morehouse college is not happy with Rev. Kevin Johnson’s comments about President Obama’s administration.
The article continues by saying that “On April 15, it said, Morehouse President John Silvanus Wilson Jr. phoned Johnson to rescind the invitation, saying he was concerned about Johnson's recent column in the Philadelphia Tribune that said there was a scarcity of African American appointees in Obama's cabinet and a lack of policies to reduce poverty” (McClatchy –Tribune Business News, 2013). What the article does not say is that the new President of Morehouse colle...

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... will have set Morehouse on a dangerous course and departed from the great tradition bequeathed to us” (Gammage, 2013). I have to agree with Rev. Kevin Johnson that Morehouse President Wilson should have honored his invitation and should have been allowed to speak. I will end with Rev. Kevin Johnson’s words, “Without free thought and free speech, Morehouse would not have produced our most admired alumnus, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr” (Gammage, 2013).

Works Cited

Gammage, J. (2013, Apr 27). Controversy on pastor's canceled ga. speech. Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1346673613?accountid=458 http://articles.philly.com/2013-04-28/news/38863918_1_morehouse-college-baccalaureate-speaker-president-obama http://videos.huffingtonpost.com/entertainment/controversy-surrounds-philadelphia-pastor-for-cancelled-speech-517761366

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