Letting it shine the city behind the nine
by COURTNEY EKER
photo by Wesley Vance
Charleston Responds The Holy City, alit with the brightness and buzz of the bright and buzzing people who reside in it, oscillated as Friday nights downtown normally do. On the Charleston skyline, church steeples speckled the horizon, looming over all the bars, hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions. The energy, the spirit of Charleston on a summer night, the life of a city whose light comes from its people -- all shot to darkness at 9 p.m. on the night of June 17, when 12 parishioners closed their eyes to end bible study with a prayer: “The Lord watch between you and me, one from the other. Amen,” as the traditional Benediction goes. Before they could open their eyes, a 21-year-old boy opened fire on the 12 people at the Bible study in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, killing nine in the most tragic hate crime in recent South Carolinian history. 20
The Holy City lay still. It later came out through his hate-filled online manifesto that Dylann Roof had targeted the church because of its African American history. He wanted to ignite a race war. While he awaits a presumed death sentence in a Charleston jail, Roof would cringe if he knew that what he ignited in the African Methodist community, in the College of Charleston community, in the city of Charleston and in the South as a whole was the exact opposite of his intention. In the words of Reverend Eugene Collins Sr., pastor at the Shiloh branch of AME Churches in Downtown Charleston, “What Dylann Roof meant for evil, God turned into good.” But this story is no longer about Dylann Roof. This story is about people. This story is about Charleston. And Charleston responded with love.
the yard
Now, almost exactly four months since that devastating June night, members of the Charleston community continue to bond through vigils, rallies, moments of silence, church services and forums in order to bring back the light that once illuminated the city. Light from candles continuously lit in memory of the victims. Light in the eyes of an 11-year-old survivor with hope for a brighter future. Light in the darkness of today’s twisted society, in which hate is perpetuated instead of addressed with institutional change. The hubbub of the media died down. Charleston slipped out of the mouths of national and international newscasters as other petty stories about Donald Trump’s constant blubbering and Hillary Clinton’s email scandal began to resurface. To the world, the AME shooting was just another ephemeral catastrophe - just adding to the plethora of racially driven tension amid our society. But for October 15
Charleston, the conversation has only just begun. There are 12 Charleston families who are still in immense pain. They lost friends; they lost relatives. 12. Not just nine. The three survivors of the shooting often go unrecognized throughout the media coverage. The unfortunate reality is that journalists can be like sensationalizing vultures circling in on tragedy. They flock to carnage. Hope doesn’t sell. Muhiyyidin d’Baha, a prominent organizer of the Black Lives Matter Movement in Charleston, talked about the media’s repulsive tendency to make tragedy into something “spectacular.” “The media spotlight creates the story that everybody replicates,” d’Baha said. “And so when the media decides that they’re going to uplift black lives that are no longer existing, then black death matters and black lives don’t matter.” 21