10 years after church massacre, faith leaders lament that the country hasn’t changed

CHARLESTON, SC.(AP):

People of faith gathered again at Mother Emanuel AME on Tuesday just like they did 10 years ago, searching for God’s truth and His love in the church fellowship hall.

On that horrible night in 2015, nine black church members were gunned down by a white man who hated them just for the colour of their skin. He sat with them through their Bible study, then as they closed their eyes and bowed their heads, he started firing.

As survivors gathered in 2025, they invited another congregation that knows the pain of murderous hatred to join them. When a gunman killed 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, Mother Emanuel’s pastor, the Rev Eric Manning, flew to Pittsburgh to comfort another flock.

It was up to Rabbi Jeff Myers to lament Tuesday that the world hasn’t changed as much as was hoped by the congregation of the South’s oldest African American church, which was founded by enslaved people, torn down after they rebelled and then rebuilt following the Civil War.

“Both of us were assaulted by Americans who did not want us to exist, who thought violence would solve their problems,” Myers said.

Then he read the portion of the US Declaration of Independence that starts with “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

“Except for the Jews and the blacks. That’s how I feel in America right now,” Myers said.

A CALL TO ACTION AND JUSTICE

Democratic US Senator Mark Kelly said American society combines hate and guns in a stew that threatens the country’s existence.

“We know that hate is dangerous. But hate with a gun in its hand is deadly,” said Kelly, who was joined at the Mother Emanuel pulpit by his wife, former US House member Gabby Giffords, who was gravely wounded in a January 2011 mass shooting in Arizona.

The Charleston church massacre did change the world in some ways.

The shooter, now on death row just like the killer at Tree of Life, posted selfie photos with a Confederate flag to hammer home his racist reasons for shooting black parishioners. For many, this act made it impossible to keep defending the rebel banner as a symbol of southern heritage. South Carolina then took the flag down from the Statehouse grounds where it was installed as a rebuttal to federal desegregation orders.

A STRUGGLE WITH OUR RACIST PAST

But some things are the same. Mother Emanuel’s sanctuary still has the same deep red carpet. The church continues its mission of empathy, empowerment, encouragement and equipping.

And the nation still struggles with the legacy of enslaving black people for hundreds of years.

South Carolina remains one of only two states in the US without a hate crime law even though survivors keep pushing for it. Months before the massacre at Mother Emanuel, a white North Charleston police officer shot and killed an unarmed black man in the back about 10 miles (16 kilometres) away. Six years later, a white officer knelt on a black man’s neck in Minnesota for nine minutes, killing him.

“On paper, the concept of the United States is a wonderful one. In reality, it is not successful right now,” Rabbi Myers said.