by Herb Frazier
PRAISE FOR WE ARE CHARLESTON
“Emotional, careful, and rich, We Are Charleston makes sense of the senseless, the Charleston, South Carolina, massacre of June 2015. From one abominable event the book shapes a testament, an investigation, and a history. We Are Charleston sets the crime within the flow of race, church life, and Southern history and offers moving portraits of the victims. It does the near impossible, which is to redeem tragedy on behalf of hope.”
—Edward Ball, author, Slaves in the Family
“This is a beautifully woven story, rich in history and narrative detail, that describes how the Mother Emanuel AME Church turned hate into forgiveness, and an act of brutality into a lesson that has inspired the nation and the world.”
—Erik Calonius, former Wall Street Journal writer and author, The Wanderer: The Last American Slave Ship and the Conspiracy That Set Its Sails
“The authors intensely probe the sanctified character of African Methodism and reveal how the members of Mother Emanuel in Charleston and other AME churches stress personal holiness that undergirds forgiveness and social holiness that mandates militant opposition to the social sin of racism. These attributes, deeply embedded in African American religion, have shown the nation and the world a sure route to healing and reconciliation.”
—Dennis C. Dickerson, retired AME Church historiographer; and James M. Lawson, Jr. Professor of History, Vanderbilt University
“In We Are Charleston a sharp investigative reporter, a distinguished historian, and a gifted poet have blended their skills, their knowledge, and their humanity in order to craft a probing account of and an insightful meditation on what happened to nine people who got caught being black and trying to be Christian on a warm night in Charleston. This unsentimental yet sensitive book will become a very important part of the way that we remember and honor those nine unique individuals. It will also become an indispensable part of the way that we try to understand the spiritual, racial, social, and political meanings of a tragic moment in a long history that we all share.”
—Reginald F. Hildebrand, associate professor, African American Studies & History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
We Are Charleston
© 2016 Herb Frazier, Dr. Bernard Edward Powers Jr., and Marjory Wentworth
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by W Publishing Group, an imprint of Thomas Nelson.
Thomas Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].
The personal stories told in this book are based on true events, and permission has been granted for the use of the real names of and correspondence from individuals interviewed for the writing of this book.
All historic newspapers quoted were transcribed by Dr. Bernard Edward Powers Jr., and, unless otherwise noted, were viewed on microfilm, the Christian Recorder, Essex Patriot, and New York Freeman at the College of Charleston Addlestone Library and the Charleston Courier (also sometimes known as the Charleston News and Courier and Post and Courier) at the downtown branch of the Charleston County Public Library and the College of Charleston Addlestone Library.
Scripture quotations marked NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible. © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version. Public domain.
ISBN 978-0-7180-4149-6 (eBook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016930186
ISBN 978-0-7180-7731-0
16 17 18 19 20 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1
In memory of Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Cynthia Graham Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance, DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Clementa Carlos Pinckney, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel L. Simmons Sr., and Myra Thompson. For Jennifer and Malana Pinckney, Felicia Sanders and her granddaughter, and Polly Sheppard.
Herb Frazier dedicates this book to his father, the late Benjamin Frazier. He also extends a special dedication to his mother, Albertha Nelson Frazier, and to the next generation: his grandchildren, Lauryn, Nicholas, Kinsley, and Connor Thomas; Nathaniel Hamilton; and Roman Lee Frazier.
Dr. Bernard Edward Powers Jr. dedicates this book to John Burkett, his maternal grandfather, who never attended school beyond the fourth grade but whose lifelong example of self-education inspired his grandson’s love of reading.
Marjory Wentworth dedicates this book to the memory of her father, John Heath, whose love and knowledge of history and literature are still her greatest inspiration. Special thanks to her family: Peter, Mary, Hunter, Alice, Oliver, and Taylor.
CONTENTS
Introduction
ONE: Wrong Church, Wrong People, Wrong Day
TWO: Forgiveness
THREE: The Flag Comes Down
FOUR: The Sin of Slavery
FIVE: Revolutionary Ideas and the Rise of African Methodism
SIX: The Slave Conspiracy
SEVEN: Resurrection
EIGHT: Jim Crow
NINE: Life in the Borough
TEN: Civil Rights
ELEVEN: People in Service to the Church
TWELVE: What Is Forgiveness?
THIRTEEN: The Unfinished Story
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
About the Authors
Photos
Forgiveness is nothing less than the way we heal the world.
—BISHOP DESMOND TUTU AND MPHO
TUTU, THE BOOK OF FORGIVING
INTRODUCTION
The flash of the assailant’s pistol on the evening of June 17, 2015, touched off a series of events that shook the foundation of Charleston’s already beleaguered Mother Emanuel AME Church, reverberating back to its very beginnings. Comparatively few people knew anything about this congregation before the heartrending news stories emerged, but it is a church that through the years has experienced the trials of the biblical Job. More than once, the hands of man or the raw forces of nature have shaken the church to its core, threatening its very existence. Now, in the aftermath of more recent events, Mother Emanuel is faced once again with having to find a way to heal and rebuild, both literally and metaphorically.
Like the rest of the community and, indeed, the nation, we were deeply saddened and unnerved that such an unspeakable crime could be committed in the place we love and call our own. We were also captivated by the tremendous outpouring of sympathy emanating from around the world for our fair city by the sea. Everyone wanted to do something to relieve the pain, to somehow right the wrong or even assuage personal guilt for failing to challenge the racist forces still extant in America. None of us was a stranger to Mother Emanuel; to the contrary, we each had close friends or relatives in the church, and, in fact, Herb grew up in the congregation where his grandmother and father were members.
Although each of us was in the midst of other projects, what had occurred could not be ignored; we, too, desired to act by pooling our collective professional resources to explore the tragedy. Using the tools of the investigative reporter to find the central stories, the historian’s grasp of the past as context, and the poet’s ability to plumb the depths of the human condition, we began this new project together. We soon discovered that to be successful, it would take our combined abilit
ies to achieve a task that not one of us could have accomplished alone. And it’s this unique combination of backgrounds and experiences united by our shared passion for our home that enables us to tell this story in one voice, speaking to and for many others. The title addresses who we are as writers while suggesting the universality of what happened in Charleston. What happened on June 17 was an assault on humanity, and what has happened since has implications that echo far beyond South Carolina.
The summer that Emanuel’s walls were scarred by bullets and the floors stained with blood also witnessed a renewed wave of church burnings and shots fired into Southern black churches—all of which were painful reminders of the long history of violence perpetrated against African Americans and their sanctuaries. The Charleston church shooting was the most recent in a series of events that further shattered the myth that President Barack Obama’s election had ushered in a post-racial America. And if there was any doubt, the events of the previous year—in Ferguson, Baltimore, and North Charleston—clearly showed that race still mattered in America, but black lives seemed not to. Reverend Clementa Pinckney, the late pastor of Mother Emanuel, once put it this way: “I think South Carolina has—and across the South we have—a deep appreciation of history. We haven’t always had a deep appreciation of each other’s histories.”1
What follows is an attempt to use the tragedy that occurred in Charleston as a way to explore the racialized history of the city and our nation that made such a crime possible. Known as the Holy City, Charleston is, ironically, the cradle of slavery. This inherent contradiction has led to tension in the region. Yet Charleston, rated several times as the number-one United States city to visit by Conde Nast Traveler and Travel and Leisure magazines,2 remained immune from racial unrest. North Charleston, the adjoining city where unarmed Walter Scott was shot in the back multiple times by a white policeman on April 4, 2015, seemed worlds away from Charleston’s charming cobblestone streets lined with horse-drawn carriages filled with tourists. It seems even farther from where Carnival Cruise ships unload at the end of North Market Street, not far from Gadsden’s Wharf, where ships carrying thousands of Africans to be sold into slavery once docked. These elements of Charleston’s history represent the other side of the city so well known for its preservation ethic and colonial-era and antebellum mansions. Racist attitudes rooted in the dark past have sometimes been preserved in the present.
We also want to explain the origins and nature of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) and the position of Mother Emanuel in the denomination and in Charleston. As symbols they are important, and without this understanding a visitor or casual news reader can’t fully grasp the meaning of what happened on June 17.
African Methodism grew out of the struggle against slavery and institutional racism as black people sought physical, financial, and cultural autonomy. Emanuel’s roots are found among Charleston’s largely enslaved population before the Civil War. While efforts to build a congregation were initially thwarted by a determined racist persecution, after the war Emanuel’s congregants experienced a resurrection that enabled them to forge ahead in the struggle for racial justice. In that regard, Emanuel and other AME churches remained true to the principles of the denominational founder, Richard Allen. Their efforts, along with those of other denominations, were also prominent in the civil rights movement, and the struggle continues to the present time to embody the meaning of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Beloved Community,” a term he popularized that “captured the imagination of people of goodwill all over the world.” For Dr. King, the Beloved Community was “a realistic, achievable goal that could be attained by a critical mass of people committed to and trained in the philosophy and methods of nonviolence.”3
Last, and certainly not least, this work explores the boundless gift of grace—exemplified by the forgiveness that family members have demonstrated—which emanates from the spiritual philosophy of the church. We know those teachings because we have had the opportunity to commune at Emanuel Church and interact with the family members in intimate settings so we could tell their stories. The Emanuel Nine, along with the five who survived this tragedy and their extended families, lived the word of the gospel; their spirit of forgiveness was in keeping with those whose lives were built around Christ’s teachings. They practiced what they preached, and they will serve as a model for what is possible.
When President Obama gave the eulogy for Rev. Pinckney, he referenced the racist attack on Charleston’s original AME church and the scattering of its congregation—as well as the church’s capacity to rise up again, like a phoenix from the ashes. Emanuel’s families have consistently demonstrated this ability. This capacity for resurrection is central to the story that unfolds in the following pages.
ONE
WRONG CHURCH, WRONG PEOPLE, WRONG DAY
Wednesday night is church night in the South, and it is no different at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. The white stucco church stands near the heart of downtown Charleston along Calhoun Street, an east-west thoroughfare that spans the city. This particular Wednesday evening fell during a series of steamy, hot summer days, when the temperature reached almost one hundred degrees, and as the sun set, about fifty dedicated members of Mother Emanuel gathered for the Quarterly Conference. Six o’clock is normally the time set aside for Bible study at the church, but this evening it was delayed for the earlier business meeting. Budget items were discussed, and plans for the long-overdue elevator, still under construction, were hashed out. Fifty-nine-year-old Myra Thompson received a license renewal, and Reverend DePayne Middleton-Doctor, forty-nine, and Dr. Brenda Nelson received their local licenses to minister from Presiding Elder Norvel Goff. After the meeting most folks went home, but a dozen of the most devout parishioners stayed for the Bible study, which started around eight o’clock.
Polly Sheppard, a seventy-year-old retired nurse, was going to leave after the business meeting, but she ran into Thompson in the ladies’ room and decided to stay since Thompson was leading the night’s Bible study. Nelson, a Bible study regular, went home to check on her sputtering air conditioner, to make sure it had been repaired and was blowing cold air again.
At exactly 8:16 p.m., a skinny young white man with a classic bowl haircut, wearing a sweatshirt and a small fanny pack, entered the back door of the church and joined the small group gathered in the large central room on the lower level of the church, below the sanctuary. Surrounded by smaller meeting rooms and offices, this room is used for church dinners and similar social gatherings. Thirteen participants sat around tables covered with white cloths to study passages from the fourth chapter of Mark. In verses 13 to 20, Jesus explains to his followers the parable of the sower that he had just finished teaching to the multitude by the sea. He warned against those who only half-heartedly embrace God’s teaching. Among them the word is “sown on rocky ground. . . . But they have no root, and endure only for a while; then, when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away” (vv. 16–17 NRSV). This passage continues to describe the way “the cares of the world, and the lure of wealth . . . choke the word, and it yields nothing” (v. 19 NRSV). Hauntingly, in verse 15, Satan is described as coming and taking away “the word that is sown in them.”
The young man asked to sit next to the church’s pastor, Clementa Pinckney, and for a time the visitor remained quiet. Though a stranger to the group, he was welcomed and included as anyone would have been in this house of worship. Toward the end of the Bible study, Myra Thompson started to say the benediction. As eyes were closed and heads were bowed, the young man with the child’s haircut pulled a handgun from his fanny pack and started shooting.
He shot Pinckney point-blank. Reverend Daniel L. Simmons Sr. immediately lunged at the shooter, crying out for his pastor; the young man fired at Simmons multiple times. There is some speculation that the killer may have panicked when Simmons reacted. But there is no question that the young man fired seventy-seven b
ullets, leaving eight people dead and one mortally wounded. Felicia Sanders had grabbed her eleven-year-old granddaughter and pushed her face against her body so the child wouldn’t cry out, telling her to play dead. Her twenty-six-year-old son, Tywanza, had been shot and was beside her and his eighty-seven-year-old aunt, Susie Jackson.
Tywanza tried to convince the gunman to stop firing during one of the five times the killer reloaded. Tywanza pleaded with him not to do it, but the gunman had a racial agenda: “I have to do this. You rape our women, and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go,” he shouted. “It don’t matter, I’m going to shoot you all.”1 Tywanza had posted a Snapchat video of the Bible class minutes before the gunman opened fire. The gunman is seen in the video.
Tywanza and Pinckney were among those who died in the room, in addition to Tywanza’s aunt, Susie Jackson, and her cousin, Ethel Lance, the church’s sexton. Also among the dead were Cynthia Graham Hurd, a librarian; Myra Thompson, a minister; and Reverend Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, a mother of three. Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor, a mother of four, lay dead too. Vietnam veteran Daniel L. Simmons Sr. was rushed to a hospital, where he died.
The killer walked past Polly Sheppard, who was cowering under a table praying.2 He asked her if she had been shot, and she answered no. Some have said he spared her life. The gunman kept walking, and although he tried firing his gun, he’d run out of bullets. He then left through the door he’d entered less than one hour before, got in his car, and drove away into the night.
Jennifer Pinckney, the pastor’s wife, and their youngest daughter, Malana, were in the church office. They heard everything that was going on. During the rounds of gunfire, Malana asked her mother, “Mama, is Daddy going to die?” Jennifer called 911.3 Sheppard could hear the sirens approaching and immediately went into nurse mode, checking on Felicia’s son, Tywanza.4 She checked Pinckney’s pulse, and she knew he was dead. Miraculously, both Felicia Sanders and her granddaughter were survivors too.
