Grace Will Lead Us Home

Grace Will Lead Us Home

Adult nonfiction
"It would be a late night. That much Felicia Sanders knew when
she gathered her worn Bible and headed out into the swampy summer heat
of June. She had a 5 o'clock committee meeting at Emmanual African
Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, where her family had worshipped
since the days when Jim Crow ruled the old slave city she still called
home. First, she would attend two meetings, one small and one large
to handle routine church business.
Last would come Bible study, her favorite."
Sadly the Bible study would have an unexpected visitor. Dylann
Roof had recently and wholeheartedly converted to white supremcism.
He felt that he had to stop Blacks from killing Whites and raping
white women.
"...The media ignored it. His friends didn't get it. Even his
own family didn't see it. And the white people who did realize it--
the skinheads, neo-Nazis, and KKK--just bitched about it online.
Nobody was doing anything to change it.
'Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real
world, and I guess that has to be me.'"
He looked for a place where he would be able to kill a large
number of Black people without mistakenly murdering any whites.
Emanual AME would work perfectly. It had a pivotal role in civil
rights history. It also had a Bible study that would not have either
a security presence or any worshipping Whites.
When Roof entered the room he was made welcome. The minister of
the church, Clementa Pinckney, handed him a Bible and study guide and
invited him to sit beside him. During the closing prayer, while the
regulars shut their eyes, Roof pulled out his Glock and began to
shoot. Firing 77 rounds, he killed nine worshippers. Felicia saw her
son, her aunt, and dear friends brutally slain.
If you were a newspaper reader or television news watcher during
the summer of 2015 you learned of the that massacre. Maybe you also
learned how at Roof's hearing some of the family members of the
deceased made public statements of forgiveness. But the media has a
short attention span, moving on quickly to the next big story.
In Grace Will Lead Us Home Jennifer Berry Hawes, a Charleston
native of decades whose children went to school across the street from
Emanuel, gives us a deeper and more nuanced look at the tragedy.
Readers get to know the many ways in which survivors and family
members suffered and coped or struggled to. We see divisions that
rocked Emanuel in the aftermath. We see reactions taken by larger
Charleston and how they were perceived quite differently by Blacks and
whites. We see an ensuing struggle to remove the Confederate flag
from the State House.
Grace Will Lead Us Home is not an easy book to read. It unveils
some truths that a lot of us would rather not know. But it was
written lucidly and eloquently by someone who knows Charleston
intimately rather than being flown in from somewhere else on
assignment. I highly recommend it to all who care about social justice.
On a purrrsonal note, summer plans are a lot different from those made
last year, aren't they? A lot of us don't have the jobs we planned on
through no fault of our own. For example, I was planning to work
dining to earn tuition money. And any travel, special events,
parties...on hold for the duration, however long that may be.
I'm going to continue to socially isolate like a rock star. It's my
civic duty. Lucky for me I have a lot of things I love doing: reading
and keeping this blog up, keeping in touch with family and friends,
writing, playing with Tobago, reorganizing the house, learning more
ways to use my laptop, being an advocate for social justice,
scrapbooking, crafting, walking while social distancing, and mindfully
enjoying the surprises each day brings. When my daffodils bloom you
will get to see them. (Jules)
I haz plans for a big summer. I will make sure mice don't invade my
home, take good care of my hoomans, do my part of this blog, watch
birdies and other interesting beings on my all neighborhood tv
(windows), reorganize the house, make hoomans who see my pictures
happy, om nom, and snooze. (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to all the hoomans being smart enough
to stay at home with their floofs and goggies.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway



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