Rev. Jeremiah Wright has been the recipient of some very unflattering political news stories for close to a week, and Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. is feeling his pain.

“I know it’s a source of pain for me to see him used as an object of degradation and manipulated the way he’s been used in the media as if he’s some sort of enemy of the state,” Jackson said on MSNBC’s Daily Rundown.

He recalled a time when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. received similar treatment and was wrongly accused of being a communist and likened the news to what Wright currently is experiencing. The civil rights activist also said that despite some of the controversy that Wright has attracted, he was a progressive and influential leader.

“I remember when parents were kicking their youth out of houses, called AIDS a kind of leprosy, he had a ministry. I remember when [gay people] were being in isolation and committing suicide, he had a gay ministry,” Jackson said. “His ministry has been a most profound one. That’s why people like a young Barack Obama and Michelle would go to that church, because it was such a well ministered and administered church.”

Wright was most recently at the center of a controversy involving a proposal to use the  former pastor to the Obamas to discourage voters from supporting the president.

Jackson said he doesn’t know where the relationship between Obama and Wright stands, although he suspects the president will continue to distance himself from Wright, and reiterated his belief that Wright shouldn’t be treated like an enemy of state.

“It’s not fair and it’s not true,” Jackson said.

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(Photo: Courtesy MSNBC)