"I Forgive You" — The Impossible Grace of the Emanuel Nine Families

A Church That Has Endured Everything

At 110 Calhoun Street in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, stands one of the oldest Black churches in the American South. Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church — known to its congregation and community as "Mother Emanuel" — was founded in 1816. Its history mirrors the full weight of the African American experience: forced underground during slavery, burned and rebuilt, a stop on the civil rights trail where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once spoke. For two centuries, this church had survived everything hatred could throw at it.

On the evening of Wednesday, June 17, 2015, about a dozen congregants gathered in the church's fellowship hall for their weekly Bible study. Leading the session was Senior Pastor and State Senator Clementa C. Pinckney, a 41-year-old man whose booming voice and gentle spirit had made him one of the most respected leaders in the state.

A Stranger Welcomed

Around 8:00 p.m., a 21-year-old white man named Dylann Roof walked through the church doors. He was a stranger. No one knew him. And yet, as was the way of Mother Emanuel, they welcomed him. They gave him a seat. They placed him right next to Pastor Pinckney. For nearly an hour, Roof sat among them, listening to scripture, surrounded by people who had opened their circle to include him without question.

Then, as the group closed their eyes in prayer, Roof drew a .45-caliber handgun and began firing.

Nine people were killed:

• Clementa Pinckney, 41 — pastor and state senator
• Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd, 54 — a librarian for 31 years
• Susie Jackson, 87 — a longtime church member and the eldest victim
• Ethel Lee Lance, 70 — the church sexton who had served Emanuel for decades
• DePayne Middleton-Doctor, 49 — an admissions coordinator and mother of four
• Tywanza Sanders, 26 — the youngest victim, who tried to shield his aunt
• Rev. Daniel Simmons, 74 — a retired pastor
• Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, 45 — a high school track coach and reverend
• Myra Thompson, 59 — a Bible study teacher

Roof later told investigators he almost didn't go through with it — because the congregation had been so kind to him. He did it anyway, driven by a manifesto of white supremacist ideology, hoping to ignite a race war.

The Words That Stopped a Nation

Two days later, on June 19, 2015, Roof appeared via video link for his bond hearing. The courtroom was tense. Charleston was grieving. The nation was watching. Many feared riots, rage, retaliation — the cycle of violence that had engulfed other American cities in similar moments.

One by one, the victims' family members were given the opportunity to address the shooter.

Nadine Collier, daughter of 70-year-old Ethel Lee Lance, spoke first. Her voice shook, but her words were steady:

"I forgive you. You took something very precious away from me. I will never get to talk to her again. I will never be able to hold her again. But I forgive you, and have mercy on your soul."

Anthony Thompson, husband of Myra Thompson:

"I forgive you. And my family forgives you."

Bethane Middleton-Brown, sister of DePayne Middleton-Doctor:

"DePayne Middleton-Doctor was my sister, and I'd like to thank you on behalf of my family for not allowing hate to win."

Felicia Sanders, a survivor who had watched her son Tywanza die shielding her:

"Every fiber in my body hurts... and I'll never be the same. Tywanza Sanders was my son. But as we said in Bible study, we enjoyed you. But may God have mercy on you."

Family after family spoke the same impossible word: forgive.

They had not coordinated their statements. They had not consulted one another beforehand. Each arrived at the same conclusion independently — drawn from the deep wells of a faith tradition that had sustained Black communities through centuries of unspeakable suffering.

A City That Did Not Burn

The impact was immediate and seismic. Journalists who had covered unrest in Ferguson, Baltimore, and other American cities were stunned. Charleston did not erupt. Instead, something unprecedented happened.

On the Sunday following the shooting — just five days later — the church reopened. Hundreds packed the 200-seat sanctuary. The pews where the victims had sat were draped in cloth, their names written in marker. A new voice led the congregation in hymns, and the service ended with a proclamation that would become the community's anthem: "Evil did not close this church's doors."

On June 21, tens of thousands of Charlestonians — Black and white — walked hand in hand across the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge in an event called the "Bridge to Unity." The image of that unbroken human chain stretching across Charleston Harbor became one of the most iconic photographs of the decade.

President Barack Obama traveled to Charleston to deliver the eulogy for Pastor Pinckney. In a moment that will live forever in American memory, Obama paused mid-speech, then began to sing "Amazing Grace" — slowly at first, alone, until the entire arena of mourners joined in. It was grief and hope fused into a single, transcendent moment.

And then came a political earthquake: the Confederate battle flag, which had flown on the South Carolina Statehouse grounds for 54 years and had been a point of bitter debate for decades, was finally removed on July 10, 2015. Governor Nikki Haley signed the bill surrounded by the victims' families. What decades of political argument could not achieve, nine families' act of radical grace had made inevitable.

Forgiveness as a Daily Battle

The families were honest in the months and years that followed. Forgiveness, they said, did not mean the absence of pain. It did not mean forgetting. It did not mean that justice was unimportant — Roof was convicted on 33 federal charges and sentenced to death in January 2017.

Nadine Collier later told reporters:

"Forgiveness is not a one-time event. It's a daily choice. Some days I fail. But I choose it again."

They described forgiveness not as a gift to the killer, but as a refusal to let hatred define the rest of their lives. It was an act of liberation — for themselves and for their community.

Mother Emanuel Still Stands

Today, nine crosses stand in front of Emanuel AME Church, each bearing a name. Fresh flowers appear at their base every day, placed by strangers and neighbors alike. The church continues to hold Wednesday Bible study. The doors remain open to anyone who walks in — just as they were on that June evening.

In 2023, the International African American Museum opened on the Charleston waterfront, just blocks from the church, continuing the city's reckoning with its past. The Emanuel Nine's story is woven into its narrative — not as an ending, but as evidence that grace can be a force more powerful than violence.

Dylann Roof wanted to start a race war. Instead, he revealed something he never imagined existed: a love so deep, so stubborn, so defiant that it could look pure evil in the eye and say, "I forgive you."

The nine who died that night did not get to choose their fate. But their families chose — in the rawest, most devastating moment of their lives — to answer hatred with grace. And in doing so, they changed a city, moved a nation, and reminded the world that the most radical act a human being can perform is not violence.

It is mercy.

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On the sidewalk outside Mother Emanuel, someone long ago wrote in chalk: "Love is stronger than hate." The rain has washed those words away many times. And every time, someone writes them again.