[3][4][5] In early 2008, as part of their presidential election coverage, news media outlets and political commentators brought Trinity to national attention when controversial excerpts of sermons by the church's long-time former pastor Jeremiah Wright were broadcast to highlight Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's pastoral relationship with Wright and the church.

[8] Trinity is best known today for its national and international social programs on behalf of the disadvantaged, although in its earliest days such outreach did not figure into its mission.

In the early 1930s, Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad moved his embroiled religion's headquarters from Detroit to Chicago.

Mixing elements of the Bible and the Qur'an, Elijah Muhammad taught that Africans were the Earth's first and most important people.

He prophesied that a time was coming when African Americans would be fully vindicated, released from their various oppressions, and brought into full freedom within their own geographical state.

[9] Another of the contextual backdrops of Trinity is a pattern of migration that occurred in Chicago during the 1950s and 1960s, when middle-class whites began vacating urban areas for surrounding suburbs.

Prior to the recent migration of whites to the suburbs, blacks had found it extremely difficult to move into middle-class surroundings in Chicago due to segregated housing patterns and homeownership discrimination (also see Racial steering).

[20] Two successful African-American Congregational churches, Good Shepherd and Park Manor, had been started earlier in the twentieth century some distance to the north in the older South Side neighborhoods, so officials were probably expecting Trinity to emulate those previous developments.

Cary wrote "Historically, the Association made special efforts to seek out 'high potential' churches within the Black community," which he said were understood as groups of blacks likely willing to be culturally assimilated into the forms and functions of worship of the Chicago Congregational Christian Association, with its strong Puritan heritage.

American religion historian Julia Speller summarizes, "It was this racial reality that informed the planting of Trinity on the South Side of Chicago.

Seating two-hundred, it was located among the growing community of southern Chicago's middle-class blacks, east of the color line.

Martin Luther King Jr...our family moved into a racially changing Chicago community, where the vestiges of racism literally stood in our way.

Racism manifested itself in insurance redlining, predatory lending practices and religious authorities working to maintain a line of segregation.

The local activist Catholic priest declared no 'niggers' were allowed across Ashland Avenue... Out of this experience of brokenness and spiritual hope...black liberation theology emerged.

The political, social and economic realities of African-American people get merged into the religious experience and are articulated through a message that is spiritual and social-speaking to the whole person."

According to Speller, this foundational focus experienced another significant crack when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, which subsequently brought many changes within black communities—another of Trinity's contextual backdrops.

[24] As Speller explains, "The failure of the civil rights movement to usher in an era of genuine integration and harmony between the races turned into a search for an alternative experience of purpose and belonging for many African Americans.

"[24] Corresponding with this search, a small rift began to form among Trinity's congregants, one that was also occurring in other predominantly black churches in the U.S. at the time.

(sic) Underlying the idea, according to Marty, is a diagnosis "of 'shame', 'being shamed', and 'being ashamed' as debilitating legacies of slavery and segregation in society and church."

[19][29] In addition to Sheares's new motto, Jordan crafted a new mission statement that encapsulated the church's new vision to be a source of spiritual sustenance, security, and inspiration; that those participating in our spiritual-social process [may] be strengthened in their commitment...to serve as instruments of God and church in our communities and the world, confronting, transforming and eliminating those things in our culture that lead to the dehumanization of persons and tend to perpetuate their psychological enslavement.

[33] Speller points out that Wright's arrival at Trinity coincided with the height of the U.S. Black Consciousness Revolution (also see South African Black Consciousness Movement) and additionally contends that Wright was keenly aware of the challenges that this deeply racialized context presented to Trinity.

As Speller describes it, the youth choir "ushered in a new day at Trinity Church, and through their music they ignited the flame that would burn off the dross of Black shame to reveal the refined gem of self-love."

However, with call and response increasing and the Pilgrim Hymnal no longer in favor, some of Trinity's congregants left because of what Wright described as "fear of change—change in the style of worship but, more importantly, change in the kind of members that would desire to join our church.

In sum, Trinity began to more fully move away from its earlier purpose surrounding "middle-classness" to one where devotion to God and the poor took much greater prominence.

[1][46][47] Among the importantant contemporary media features highlighting Wright and Trinity is that by correspondent Roger Wilkins in a Sherry Jones' documentary entitled "Keeping the Faith," broadcast as the June 16, 1987 episode of the PBS series Frontline with Judy Woodruff.

[50] Byassee asserts that Trinity is well within the mainstream of the black church, and is remarkable in the mainline Protestant world only for its size and influence.

"[51] The Compensatory Model has been a designation of black churches where congregants find acceptance, appreciation, and applause often denied them within dominant society.

Motivation stems from a promise of achieving personal empowerment and recognition, i.e., congregants are "compensated" with improved self-esteem as their peers affirm their successes.

He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without losing the opportunity of self-development.