Remember the Emanuel 9

Remember. 

Five years ago today, a young man walked into a historic church. He listened to the group of worshippers already there as they prayed and discussed scripture.

Then he told them he had to kill them. The shooter said, "I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go."

He murdered 9 innocent people within the church walls.

When he was arrested, the officers served him some Burger King and led him safely to jail.

To this day, he isn’t sorry. A Washington Post article said, “in a jailhouse journal, he wrote that he isn’t sorry and that he hadn’t shed a tear for the “innocent people I killed.””

I remember today. I honor the lives of the Emanuel 9, our brothers and sisters slaughtered within the sanctuary:

Susie Jackson, 87

The Rev. Daniel Simmons, 74

Ethel Lance, 70

Myra Thompson, 59

Cynthia Hurd, 54

Depayne Middleton Doctor, 49

The Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, 45

The Rev. Clementa Pinckney, 41

Tywanza Sanders, 26

I remember the silence of many sanctuaries after their murder. I remember that, too. Silence is refuge for the violent, strange fruit of racism.

We honor the victims by remembering. We honor the future by learning from the past: our biases, our violence, our propensity to numb ourselves to racism, death, and dehumanization.