Dearest Family: Cynthia Hurd, 54, branch manager for the Charleston County Library System Susie Jackson, 87, longtime church member Ethel Lance, 70, employee of Emanuel AME Church for 30 years Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor, 49, admissions counselor of Southern Wesleyan University The Honorable Rev. Clementa Pinckney, 41, state senator, Reverend of Emanuel AME Church Tywanza Sanders, 26, earned business administration degree from Allen University Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr., 74, retired pastor (died at MUSC) Rev. Sharonda Singleton, 45, track coach at Goose Creek High School Myra Thompson, 59, church member We say their names. We grieve. We rage. We breathe. We still here though family. On June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof Stone stepped into the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Mother Emanuel Church, the oldest Black church in the South, a site of organized resistance to slavery, colonization and white supremacy since the 1800s, burned to the ground after one of its founders, Denmark Vesey, and many others planned a slave revolt. And on the 193rd anniversary of that slave revolt, twenty one year old Stone stepped into this church, which is the cultural and political core of the Black community, and stated explicitly his intentions. Even as we are faced with despair, we know Black life is sacred and Black life is precious. Even as we are faced with despair, we must take courage from the legacy of the church and the collective resistance it birthed, fortified and gave shelter to. In the last few days, SONG has watched the media’s capricious spin on this white supremacist, terrorist attack. This is not an issue of gun control, this is not an attack on Christianity, and this is certainly not an isolated, inexplicable incident carried out by a mentally ill ‘lone wolf.’ We are in a crisis, and this crisis is as American as the confederate flag soaring above the South Carolina state house to this day. We remember Deah Shaddy Barakat, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, the three Muslim youth in Chapel Hill, NC. We see the current ethnic purging of hundreds of thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent. We feel the impact of the attack on three Black churches, three centers of Black life, in Charleston, Memphis, and Richmond in the past 48 hours. These are not isolated events but coordinated attacks on Black, Pan-African, immigrant, and Muslim life by white vigilantes and by the state in an attempt to erase us. We charge genocide! But still we rise. And we are more organized and we continue to resist because our lives, literally, depend on it. At SONG we understand the increase in white vigilantism is also a direct response to heightened Black-led organizing, with Black queer and trans people at the helm of that resistance. We believe in transformation, true reflection and action. We invite our southern kin and our South Carolina kin to end compliance with the white supremacist attitude, culture and policies in our hometowns and states. We support the efforts by the black community to self determine what safety looks like without police and state intervention and we acknowledge that the solutions must be profound, institutional and generational. For those of us who are white, we must act now more than ever. We cannot pretend we are any different than Dylann Roof Stone, as white supremacy is a cancer that infects us all. We must claim him as our own, take responsibility for him, and fight like hell to take down white supremacy in every aspect of our private and public lives. This is our work to do and today we have a chance to stop colluding with shame and make sure violent racist attacks are a thing of the past. There is no neutral, no grey, no safe “outside” of this moment. Clearly, it is time for mourning, time for soul searching, and time for seeing and holding the value of each life cut short by this act of hate. Holding love in the light; holding tight to brave and transformative hope for a future where our houses of faith, our communities, our families, our bodies are safe. This is our birthright and if we want to get there then this is a time for action. ACTIONS TAKE TO THE STREETS
