Mother Emmanuel Ameen’s church legacy was remembered seven years after the tragic shooting.
Melvin Graham looks back on the life and legacy of his sister Cynthia Graham Heard along the seventh anniversary of the mass shootings of his mother, Emmanuel Ames.
Josh Morgan, USA Today
Melvin Graham sat on the right side of the arena with other families and listened as he read the names of nine church members who were killed by white supremacists at Emmanuel Ame Church in Charleston.
He hears Obama call his sister Cynthia Graham Heard.
It was emotional enough. But at one point, the then president was “a surprising grace,” with pastors, family members and choir members.
“It was one of those moments when you just wanted to break and cry,” recalled Graham, who had been listening to hymns and sang it for so long. “It’s not the context of losing someone you love.”
Ten years ago, shootings at the Emmanuel Ame Church, a historic black church known as “Mother Emmanuel,” shocked the country. Members including Cynthia, a librarian – took part in a biblical study that evening of June 17th, on the evening of the white man who later fatally shot a nine. Five other people survived.
A few days later, some of the family, called Obama’s existence, were heartbreaking moments when the country tackled the horrors of those who shot guns at churches, with a funeral and hymn production.
“Even though this happened to black people in the church… I felt like I had sent the message, ‘This could happen to anyone,'” said Pastor Sharon Rischer, whose mother, Ethel Lee Lance, was inside Emmanuel 9. “The sympathy from the country was overwhelming. ”
The country was also fascinated by some of the families who publicly forgiving shooters. However, in the decade since the massacre, families and others have been plagued by other deadly attacks on people due to race, ethnicity and faith. And while they continue to demand justice from their lost loved ones, they also seek more effort to prevent gun violence and to curb the divisions that plague the country. Family and community leaders hope to see more action by commemorating the 10th anniversary.
To celebrate the anniversary, Mother Emmanuel will host a series of events, including a June 17 service called “Acts of Amazing Grace Month.”
The Grahams held a Cynthia service ceremony at their church on June 12th, with a “future path” continuing to discuss efforts to heal and take action in 10 years.
“It’s a moment when we move from mourning to memorial,” Tonya Matthews, president and CEO of the International Museum of African Americans in Charleston, told USA Today. We have a moral obligation to do more than we remember the moment. We must learn from it and use history lessons to inform the future. ”
“Movement from Mourning to Memorial”
Beyond Charleston is a memorial and respect to honor Emmanuel Nine, including a wooden bench with a name in the park near the church.
The scholarships, foundations and Memorial Gardens also pay tribute to the honor. The library was renamed Cynthia Graham Hard/St. Andrews Library.
Construction is underway for the church’s Emmanuel Nine Memorial. Church officials hope it provides space to help heal.
“They are memorial and they are memorized,” Graham said. He added that racial attacks are still happening.
‘Someone is going to act on a lie – again.”
Since the shooting at his mother, Emmanuel, attacks on people have continued because of their faith, race, or ethnicity. In 2022, ten black shoppers were killed by white supremacists at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.
Holly Fisher Hickman, a history professor at Bowie State University in Maryland, says that while some communities have condemned such attacks, there is a surge in racist rhetoric against immigration.
Beyond Trump administration’s policies, such as travel bans from African countries and challenges to birthright citizenship, people are more vocal about attacking other communities, she said.
“It’s even worse,” Fisher Hickman said.
Graham said public leaders should take the lead in condemning divisive rhetoric. He hopes that commemorations will remind people of the harm that may come from them.
“The undercurrent for this to happen is right there,” Graham said.
“Forgiveness is between him and God.”
Risher was just as surprised as others when some families, including herself, told Dylann Roof that they had forgiven him during court hearing shortly after the shooting.
“They just feel forced, their words just came out of their mouths,” recalls Richer, who believes God has intervened.
She called public forgiveness important, as it “sets the tone of voice for what happens in Charleston.”
The community has come together.
It needed Risher, who lost his childhood friend and two cousins in a church shooting. “I’m like, ‘Oh, hell no,'” she said.
Two years later, during a sermon in Virginia’s interfaith service, Risher said he was moved to publicly forgive the roof.
“God allowed it to be resolved in his own time,” said Risher, author of “Ages like this: Hope and Forgiveness After the Charleston Massacre.”
For the past decade, she has been an advocate for preventing gun violence and abolishing the death penalty.
Last month, Emmanuel Nine’s family took part in a Zoom Call to get an update on the appeal of the roof along with victim advocates.
The roof, 21 years old at the time of the church’s shooting, was one of three federal death row inmates who were not given a detective commutive by President Joe Biden last December.
Historically, the African-American community has given others blessings, Fisher Hickman said. But some of today doesn’t feel that way.
“Now people are saying, ‘I have not given any more grace, I’ve run out of grace,'” she said.
Some Emmanuel Nine families have expressed forgiveness, but not everyone has it.
“Forgiveness is between him and God,” Graham said.
“You can’t run my sister and say, ‘Forgive me,'” he said. “He planned the time and moment of his sister’s death that day.”
Instead, the family said lawmakers were pushing Emmanuel Nine to adopt stricter gun laws and live on Emmanuel Nine’s memory. Graham’s brother Malcolm recently released a book called “The Way Forward: Maintaining Faith and Working in Hate and Violence.”
“We don’t want to be an angry black family,” Melvin Graham said.
I remember their names
Pastor Clementa Pickney, 41, Emmanuel’s mother and Senior pastor of the Senate.
Rev. Sharonda Coleman Singleton, 45, Associate Pastor, High School Coach
Cynthia Graham Hurd, 54, longtime librarian and branch manager
Susie Jackson, 87, church councillor, choir member
Longtime members of Ethel Lee Lance, 70, Sexton, and Mother Emmanuel
Depayne Middleton-Doctor, 49, Minister of the Church, aDmissions Coordinator, Singer
Tywanza Sanders, 26, recent college graduate, aspiring rapper
Daniel Simmons, senior, 74, retired pastor, Army veteran, Purple Heart recipient
Myra Thompson, 59, teacher, counselor, church councillor