Church gives hope in light of tragedy

The church known to its members today as Mother Emanuel is well-loved by parishioners. Here’s why. The Mother Emanuel AME Church of Charleston, South Carolina, has been around a long time. It has seen a lot of history unfold within its walls and around them since its founding in 1816.

Back in those days, black people could only worship during daylight hours, according to city regulations. Remember, most or all of them were slaves. The church was founded by Morris Brown after leaving the Methodist Episcopal Church because blacks were forbidden to bury their dead in the church cemetery because of their color.

Yes, back then even cemeteries were segregated.

The church saw tragedy in 1822, when Denmark Vesey — a church founder and five others were accused of a slave revolt. They were tried and executed in secret.

The original church was burned down by white supremacists. It was rebuilt, but only to face another threat in 1834, when all black churches in Charleston were outlawed. Church members met in secret until 1865 at the end of the Civil War.

It saw hope when one of its own, Rev. Richard Cain, was elected to the South Carolina Senate in 1868. Later, in 1872, he would go on to serve as Republican congressman in the House of Representatives, one of the first black men to do so in America’s history.

The church hosted living legends in the 20th century, like Booker T. Washington, who spoke there. And in 1962 it saw resolve when Dr. Martin Luther King and Wyatt T. Walker of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference urged members to register and vote during the early years of the Civl Rights movement.

And it also saw determination in 1969, as the widow of Dr. King, Coretta Scott King, led a march of some 1,500 people in support of striking hospital workers to the church. They faced South Carolina National Guardsmen with fixed bayonets. About 900 were arrested, including the pastor.

The church was witness to celebration for the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation on Dec. 31, 2012, and the annual parade to its doors in the name of freedom the very next day, Jan. 1, 2013. That freedom from slavery was issued in 1863, while the nation was plunged into bloody civil war.

On June 17, 2015, Mother Emanuel church would know tragedy once again, while people gathered in the basement for a Bible study session. People like the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, a state senator and senior pastor of the church; Cynthia Hurd a librarian; Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, also a pastor of the church; Tywanza Sanders, a young man of great promise; grandmother Ethel Lance, and her cousin, Susie Jackson; DePayne Middleton-Doctor and mother of four; and Myra Thompson, wife of Rev. Thompson of the nearby Holy Trinity Espiscopal Church; and Rev. Daniel Simmons. They all gathered together for a Bible study with one guest.

The guest was a minion of death itself in the form of young white man, bent on murder and armed with a .45 caliber handgun. He killed them because of the color of their skin.

It was a slaughter in the house of God for the evil of racism by a twisted young coward of the lowest scale of humanity.

I will not name him, I will not talk about him, nor anything written by or about him. Far too much has been said about this low life. Suffice to say he is in the hands of the judicial system. May justice be swift for what he has done.

Instead, I honor those fallen members of a historic church with deep roots in our nation’s history. But the story does not end in death and loss. No, it does not end with violence. It does not end at all. In fact it is a beginning.

It begins with hope and faith, even as church members cleaned up the bloody mess, patching or removing all traces of the bullet holes, and cleaning out the stains of a massacre. Mother Emanuel Church is ready to move forward after this horror was inflicted on them.

Less than a week after the killings, on a hot Sunday afternoon, the church opened its doors to the public for a special healing service to ease the pain of the grieving. And the people responded by the hundreds. People of all walks in life and all colors under the human rainbow gathered together to grieve, to pray in a show of faith and hope in a place that has done just that for close to 200 years.

That is the true purpose of this historic house of God: giving hope and faith to those who have seen the worst that some people have inflicted upon them: slavery, oppression, Jim Crow, segregation, the uphill struggle for equal rights and human dignity. And now the survival of racially motivated murder in the 21st century is added to that sad litany.

Some of the victims’ families even forgave the shooter. They also thanked God he was in custody. They were living up to the tenets of their faith. It says something about the good in people so many find lacking in this troubled world we live in.

Rev. Norvell Goff summed it up for me by saying this on that hot Sunday in Charleston: “No evildoer, no demon in hell or on Earth can close the doors of God’s church.” Followed by this: “When times of trouble come into our lives, how do we respond? Do we respond by being afraid? Or do we respond by faith?”

“The open doors of Emanuel on this Sunday sends a message to every demon in hell that no weapon formed against me shall prosper,” Goff said in his sermon.

Even though I’m not a churchgoer by any stretch of the imagination, I totally agree with the good Reverend.

Wasilla resident Daniel D. Grota retired from the U.S. Army after more than 21 years of service.