I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Tag: Mother Emanuel Church Nine

  • I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes Unto the Hills – A Final Farewell to the Obama Presidency


    Last night Pretty and I watched and listened to President Barack Obama as he delivered his final address to the nation, and I confess we both shed tears during the speech. I feel a deep sense of personal loss today – like I have lost a member of my family because the Obama family has, indeed, made me feel welcome to be a part of their lives in the White House for the past eight years. That’s a long time.

    Webster’s Thesaurus describes the word eloquent as follows: “persuasive, forceful, striking, stirring, moving, spirited, emphatic, articulate, passionate, impassioned, vivid, poetic.” Pause and let that sink in.

    The President’s final address in Chicago was as eloquent as his first speech there eight years ago and remarkably reminiscent of the first one in his themes of hope and confidence for future generations of Americans. That hope and confidence is a true leap of faith at the end of two terms of the most contentious, bitter years of partisanship in our political process as I’ve witnessed in my seventy years as a citizen.

    His belief in the necessity of compromise and cooperation to accomplish his goals of peace and prosperity for the American people and our allies has been both his strength and unbelievably, also his weakness. His legacy will be debated by historians for the next hundred years, but his successes and failures are already in the books.

    Obama…statesman…humanitarian…peacemaker… orator…father…husband…sports fan…a person of integrity with a good sense of humor…decent human being. These are my impressions of the man I’ve grown to know and love.

    But the most indelible impressions I have of Barack Obama are in his role as the compassionate comforter to a nation plagued by multiple shootings sprinkled throughout his presidency. Binghamton, New York. Representative Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Arizona. Aurora, Colorado movie theater. Fort Hood two times. Washington Navy Yard. Oak, Wisconsin. Chattanooga, Tennessee. San Bernadino, California. Jewish synagogue in Kansas City. Muslims in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Oregon community college. Sandy Hook Elementary School in December of 2012.

    Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina on June 18, 2015.

    “Michelle and I know several members of Emanuel AME Church. We knew their pastor, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who, along with eight others, gathered in prayer and fellowship and was murdered last night. And to say our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families, and their community doesn’t say enough to convey the heartache and the sadness and the anger that we feel. Any death of this sort is a tragedy. Any shooting involving multiple victims is a tragedy. There is something particularly heartbreaking about the death happening in a place in which we seek solace and we seek peace, in a place of worship.” (June 18, 2015)

    All in all, there were 15 multiple shootings during President Obama’s two terms, and I turned to him for some degree of reasoning and yes, comfort, in the aftermath of those horrific acts. Each time, he carried the weight of our collective grief and sorrow on his shoulders and somehow brought a compassionate comfort to our troubled republic.

    Almost exactly a year after the Mother Emanuel tragedy in my home state, another terrorist attack or hate crime or whatever you want to call it took place at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida on June 12, 2016. It was the deadliest mass shooting by a single shooter in our country’s history and the largest attack launched since 09-11, 2001.

    There were 49 people killed and 53 wounded.

    “Today, as Americans, we grieve the brutal murder — a horrific massacre — of dozens of innocent people.  We pray for their families, who are grasping for answers with broken hearts. We stand with the people of Orlando, who have endured a terrible attack on their city…

    This is an especially heartbreaking day for all our friends — our fellow Americans — who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.  The shooter targeted a nightclub where people came together to be with friends, to dance and to sing, and to live.  The place where they were attacked is more than a nightclub — it is a place of solidarity and empowerment where people have come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds, and to advocate for their civil rights. 

    So this is a sobering reminder that attacks on any American — regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation — is an attack on all of us and on the fundamental values of equality and dignity that define us as a country.  And no act of hate or terror will ever change who we are or the values that make us Americans…

    Today marks the most deadly shooting in American history.  The shooter was apparently armed with a handgun and a powerful assault rifle.  This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub.  And we have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be.  And to actively do nothing is a decision as well.

    As we go together, we will draw inspiration from heroic and selfless acts — friends who helped friends, took care of each other and saved lives.  In the face of hate and violence, we will love one another.  We will not give in to fear or turn against each other.  Instead, we will stand united, as Americans, to protect our people, and defend our nation, and to take action against those who threaten us.    

    May God bless the Americans we lost this morning.  May He comfort their families.  May God continue to watch over this country that we love.  Thank you.”

    I will miss this President Obama whose accomplishments at the international and national levels were many including a Nobel Peace Prize but whose presidency for me was essentially a personal one.

    For some reason his exit triggers a memory of my father’s last words to me as he was being rolled away on a hospital bed to a surgery that would change our family’s lives forever: I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from which cometh my help…

    I will leave it there.

     

     

     

  • Reflections on a Flag


    Within the span of twenty-four days the people of the state of South Carolina have had an opportunity to witness victories over hatred and fear and unkindness with acts of love and forgiveness and good will. The importance of these victories will be measured in time in our lives by the way we treat each other as individuals and as the body politic is governed, but we have the right today to respectfully celebrate together even as a symbol of divisiveness returned to the ground from whence it sprung. Confederate flag lowered, flag pole removed, flag relocation accomplished.

    The flag flew at the State Capitol for fifty-four years amid controversy and contention and much political posturing between opposing political parties and factions within those parties. The decision to remove it came not without rancor and recrimination in and outside the State Capitol – but it did come comparatively quickly twenty-four days after the massacre at Mother Emanuel. On June 17, 2015 nine members of the Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina were shot and killed by a young gunman from Columbia after he had been welcomed by them to participate in their routine Wednesday evening Bible study. Apparently he stayed in the small meeting for an hour before opening fire and killing six women and three men. Only one woman survived.

    Four days after the massacre in their church, the following Sunday morning of June 21, 2015, Mother Emanuel once again opened its doors for the regular Sunday services. By this time, the alleged killer had been caught and the crime had been identified as a hate crime of horrific proportions and video images of the man began to surface – images of a young white male waving a Confederate flag spewing racial hatred against blacks. Television interviews with his friends claimed that he hoped his actions would begin a racial war in South Carolina.

    The murders attracted international attention and an article written by John Eligan and Richard Faussat appeared in the New York Times on that Sunday, June 21st. in which they described other worship services a block away from Mother Emanuel that were taking place in a small white tent as crowds gathered to mourn the nine people killed. All the church bells in Charleston had pealed for nine minutes at 10 a.m. and various pastors in the white tent spoke following the tolling of the bells.

    Jermain Watkins, a black teaching pastor at Journey Church in Charleston, was quoted in the Times article as follows: “To hatred we say no way, not today. To racism, we say no way, not today. To division we say no way, not today. To reconciliation we say yes. To loss of hope, we say no way, not today. To a racial war, we say no way, not today. To racial fear, we say no way, not today. Charleston, together, we say no way, not today.”

    Across the country in the First Corinthian Baptist Church in Harlem, the Times article went on to quote the Reverend Michael A. Walrond, Jr. as saying “Racism, bigotry, prejudice and hatred are elements woven into the fabric of this country. There can be no healing in this land if we are not honest about who we are.”

    Being honest about who we are is easier said than done. Often, we find ourselves struggling to be honest about who we love  – not to mention who we hate. And if we have these individual struggles in our personal lives as we look in our own reflections in the mirror, how much more difficult is it to be honest about who we are as a collection of citizens who grow up with our segregating filters of race, gender, sexual orientation, income levels, degrees of health, rural versus urban with suburban in-between, political affiliations and more. We are a nation divided on many levels with distrust and fear and prejudice against those who are different from us.

    But the examples of the families and friends of the Emanuel Nine and the citizens of Charleston under the leadership of Mayor Riley with the support of local, state and federal law enforcement officials have been glimmers of hope in a land which too often appears to be hopelessly mired in hatred and fear. Removing the Confederate flag was a symbolic reaction by an entire state that said, we must be honest with ourselves about the hatred and evil that exist within our boundaries. We must resolve with the families of the Emanuel Nine to say yes to reconciliation, to say yes to forgiveness, to say yes to hope and to begin again to build bridges of kindness and concern for each other. As this flag is lowered, our collective spirits are raised.