It was 150 years ago today that the United States announced the abolition of slavery in Texas. The date, known as Juneteenth, came to be celebrated as a holiday in states across the country to mark the end of slavery. But today, Americans are also grappling with tough questions about racism and violence after Wednesday’s shooting in Charleston, S.C. – which authorities and witnesses are calling a hate crime – left nine people dead at a black church and a white man in custody. Here’s how five black American writers have responded to the tragedy.
Rebecca Carroll on violence against women (The Guardian)
Context: Dylann Storm Roof, the suspect in the shooting, had remarked to friends that “blacks were taking over the world” before the attack. Sylvia Johnson, a cousin of one of the victims, told MSNBC that a survivor told her the gunman said: “I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country.”
“The idea that white women’s bodies represent that which is inviolable while black women’s are disposable hasn’t changed enough since it was first articulated by white men; but again, aimed at black men on Wednesday night, it was predominately black women who suffered by their invocation.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates on South Carolina’s Confederate symbols (The Atlantic)
Context: In addition to the U.S. and state flags, the South Carolina legislature grounds flies the blue-and-red Confederate flag, which remained at full mast after the Charleston attack. The flag drew criticism on social media for its associations with the Civil War and the slave-owning American South.
“Dylann Roof plundered nine different bodies last night, plundered nine different families of an original member, plundered nine different communities of a singular member. An entire people are poorer for his action. The flag that Roof embraced, which many South Carolinians embrace, does not stand in opposition to this act – it endorses it.”
Henry Louis Gates Jr. on Clementa Pinckney, the slain pastor (The New York Times)
Context: The victims included pastor Clementa Pinckney, a state senator.
“I have no doubt that had the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney lived, he would have become known – and celebrated – across our country for his leadership, rather than sealed immortally in tragedy, one more black martyr in a line stretching back to the more than 800 slave voyages that ended at Charleston Harbor.”
Jamelle Bouie on the church (slate.com)
Context: Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, known as “Mother Emanuel” to its parishioners, has a long historic connection to anti-slavery and civil-rights causes. One of its founders tried to organize a slave revolt in 1822, and it was a gathering place for protesters in the civil-rights movement in the 1960s.
“Emanuel AME isn’t just a church; it’s the oldest black congregation in the South (outside of Baltimore) and a historic symbol of black resistance to slavery and racism. In other words, Emanuel’s blackness – its great status in black history – made it a target for violence and hate.”
Lawrence Brown on the T-word (salon.com)
Context: The church massacre has stirred debate in the United States about whether the news media should describe the attack as a terrorist act.
“The evidence is clear. The reports are in. There is no other conclusion. It’s 2015, and Black people in America are under a sustained and lethal terrorist attack.”
Bonus: Watch Obama’s response
With a report from Reuters