Charleston's Legacy of Resistance

Charleston is known as the holy city, for its many steeples and spires that tower above the landscape. On Wednesday night, a most unholy act happened in one of the city’s congregations. Suspect Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old white man, is believed to have entered the doors of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. According to authorities, he sat among church members for nearly an hour before he started shooting. A state senator and the church’s pastor, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, was murdered along with six women and two men in his congregation. “I do believe this was a hate crime,” the police chief said. Black men and women were targeted while they held Bible study. An act of terror happened in a sacred space. There are still so many questions. In the hours and days and weeks to come, details and analysis will surface: who are the victims and what are their stories; how do we combat racism and violence; where did the shooter get a gun; did he suffer from mental illness; how much was he known to authorities. But some things we may never know, or understand. This is not the first attack on an American house of worship. But in a year of cries for justice over police brutality and lost black lives, this mass shooting again brings us to the dreadful realization that injustice continues and tragedies mount.