| BRIAN SNYDER | CNS |
| A man pays his respects outside Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, June 21, 2015. Nine Black people were shot to death by white supremacist Dylann Roof at an evening Bible study inside the church June 17, 2015. |
The 2015 mass shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church was intensely personal to Malcolm Graham.
Among the nine people killed at the historic Black church in Charleston, S.C., was his sister, Cynthia Graham Hurd, a librarian. Dylan Roof, a self-avowed white supremacist, was arrested and convicted of murder. He was sentenced to death in federal and state trials.
Roof, along with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and Robert Gregory Bowers who committed the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting were the only three inmates left on death row after President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of 37 people convicted of capital charges.
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| Charlotte City Council member Malcolm Graham is author of “The Way Forward.” |
In an interview with The Post, Graham, a Charlotte City Council member, talked about his new book, “The Way Forward,” his recollections of the attack and his perspective on the nation’s shortcomings in addressing racial justice. Graham will kick off a promotional book tour in Charleston on March 13, at the Cynthia Graham Hurd/St. Andrews Regional Library. Another book signing will be held on March 15 at the John L. Dart Library.
Charlotte stops will be announced later.
Responses are edited for brevity and clarity.
TCP: What led to your decision to write “The Way Forward?”
MG: “The African American community in general was target of the hate crime. Certainly, my sister and those who were there for the brunt of that crime, but it was really an attack on a race of people. They just happened to be there, and they just happened to be Black, and so it was really an attack on the race of people.
“Cynthia was a librarian. She was a member of the Charleston County Library System for some 31 years. She loved books and reading, and I thought it would be a fitting tribute on this 10th anniversary to put my own recollection of the events of that time in writing, to continue to educate and inform the community about what happened there. And then history is extremely important to do in the way that acknowledged that history for my family as well, so that our family could understand the impact that it had on one of our relatives and someone that we cared and loved, and really to talk about what I went through during that period of time. [It’s] part history lesson and then prescribe to this community how we move forward.”
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| Cynthia Graham Hurd |
TCP: Was it intentional to publish close to the 10-year anniversary or was it the amount of time needed to sufficiently heal before writing?
MG: “It’s just a coincidence that it happens on the 10th anniversary. When we started getting to year seven and eight, and a lot of people have been asking me for some time to put my thoughts on paper. I never had the fortitude to do it – it was too tough to bring back those memories. Just was not in the head space to do it the first couple of years after this, and it just really went by quickly.
“It was the murder itself. It was the funeral. It was the coming down with the Confederate flag. It was the trial. It was personal healing. And so, I just wasn’t really in the head space to do something of that nature. And the further we got away from it, the trial was over; self-healing had been going on for a while that I really wanted to honor her and put my recollection on paper for my family’s sake.
“I’m a grandfather now, and for my niece and nephews that they really get an understanding of what happened to their aunt and their family members.
TCP: Is that prism of America’s racial history something you wanted to tackle in telling this story?
MG: “I just wanted to make sure that people didn’t forget what happened 10 years ago. That there were 14 individuals, actually had a Bible study in the basement of a church, worshiping, and a crazy white guy came in with a funny haircut and sat with them for an hour, prayed with them, and then fired 77 shots and killed nine of them and terrorized four others.
“And as I said before, those who died that night certainly were victims of this hate crime, but it was an attack on a race of people. Our community, the African American community, going back two [hundred], three [hundred], 400 years, have always been under attack. One of the things that Dylan Roof said was that he wanted to start a race war and I’m pretty sure the war had already started many, many years ago, so it’s just a place in time where we could remember what happened, tell the story, especially in the environment today where so many people are wanting to erase Black history.”
TCP: What do you hope to accomplish on the tour?
MG: “Hopefully, over this tour, I can talk about the book per se and using Charleston, in my experience, as an example, but also pivot towards system failures throughout the country that these systems, many of them controlled by mediocre white men that are intentionally providing barriers for the success of a race of people.”
“This is intentional, what’s coming out of Washington, D.C. It’s intentional about destroying or not teaching Black history. It’s intentional about suggesting that somehow DEI is a meritless system. It’s intentional about a wink and a nod to white nationalists to gain votes and then allowing them to run free. [This is] the system that’s producing all of this, and hopefully, through this tour, I can talk about those type of topics and create what I call an environment of healthy tension.”
This article corrects the year of the Mother Emanuel AME Church mass shooting.