'No room for hate'

Alana Simmons, granddaughter of Emanuel AME Church shooting victim Daniel Simmons Sr., says her family begins every day with prayer. Her grandfather taught them that, so when they asked how could God let a gunman enter His house and kill her grandfather and eight others during an impromptu Bible study, they turned to prayer for answers.

They heard, “Sometimes God allows what He hates to accomplish what He loves,” she said, quoting words she remembers her mother saying.

On June 17 the Bible study that God loves preceded the murder that God hates. Dylann Roof, 21, sat for an hour during the Wednesday evening study in the basement of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on Calhoun Street in downtown Charleston, S.C., then killed nine persons.

Over the course of the next four days the world learned more about Christian faith and what God can bring out of sadness. As news spread, people gathered at the church to lay flowers and messages of hope and sympathy on the steps.

On Friday afternoon grieving family members addressed Roof, captured in North Carolina within 12 hours after the shooting. Nadine Collier, daughter of Ethel Lance, the church’s janitor, said, “You hurt me. You hurt a lot of people, but God forgives you, and I forgive you.” Bethane Middleton Brown, daughter of DePayne Middleton-Doctor, said, “We are the family that love built. We have no room for hate, so we have to forgive.”

The families’ message of forgiveness, and their determination not to let hate win, reverberated at a Friday evening Community Prayer and Healing Vigil at the College of Charleston’s TD Arena. Sunday morning brought a prayer and worship gathering at Marion Square in downtown Charleston. Nearby, “Mother Emanuel” AME Church, refusing to shut its doors, held services with an interim pastor presiding in place of the slain Rev. Clementa Pinckney.

On Sunday evening, an estimated 20,000 or more people gathered on either side of the Arthur Ravenel Bridge that spans the Cooper River between Charleston and Mount Pleasant. Organizers feared the hastily announced Bridge to Peace Unity event would attract maybe a few thousand, but as the numbers grew their excitement heightened. Thousands on each side bowed heads in prayer before climbing the long ascent to the middle, strangers greeting strangers with smiles and hugs, singing hymns as they marched.

Before people began the march, police opened a way in the crowd for families of the nine victims to pass through and lead the trek to the top. “It’s about love and forgiveness, not hate and bigotry,” said one marcher. Police officers shared high-fives and hugs with marchers.

At the top of the bridge, event organizer Jay Johnson, leader of the “Official Black Lives Matter” group, discarded his Black Lives Matter shirt and announced a new group had been born: “All Lives Matter.”

—Dick Peterson is a South Carolina journalist