'The Emanuel Nine': A Memorial For The Victims of The Charleston Church Massacre

Three years after a racist blood bath in its fellowship hall — and 200 years after its defiant founding as one of the South’s first black congregations — Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., unveiled designs on Sunday for a contemplative memorial to the nine victims and five survivors of the horrific attack.

As envisioned by the architect Michael Arad, who also designed the National September 11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan, sections of the church’s parking lot would be transformed into two meditative spaces, one a stone memorial courtyard, the other a grassy survivors’ garden. Together they would speak to the suffering and resilience of a church that has outlasted two centuries of persecution through its practice of faith and forgiveness.

The focal point of the memorial is a pair of sleekly curving high-backed pews, carved of white marble, that would welcome visitors from Calhoun Street like outstretched arms. Some congregants have seen in them a pair of angels’ wings, or even the hull of a slave ship.

Mr. Arad, a New York-based partner with Handel Architects, said the plan was “intended to promote a sense of community, that when you walk into this space, you become a member of this congregation.

At the center will be an ovate fountain whose waters wash over the inscribed names of the worshipers who were killed on June 17, 2015: the Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, the Rev. DePayne Middleton Doctor, Cynthia Hurd, Ethel Lee Lance, Susie Jackson, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, Tywanza Sanders, the Rev. Daniel Simmons and Myra Thompson.

The memorial would take the place of the asphalt lot where Dylann S. Roof, a 21-year-old white supremacist, parked his car before walking through an unsecured door to join a Bible study session in progress. He waited until the congregants closed their eyes in benediction, took a handgun out of a waist pack and began firing. When he was captured the next day, Mr. Roof confessed that his goal had been to incite a race war. He offered no defense at his trial in federal court and received a death sentence in January 2017, which he is appealing.

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I'm still very sadden over this and I am glad this memorial is taking place to honor all of the victims. America seriously have a problem anytime people can't go to Church without getting gunned down because the color of their skin. We'll never forget.