Mother Emanuel : two centuries of race, resistance, and forgiveness in one Charleston church / Kevin Sack.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sack, Kevin, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Charleston (S.C.)--Church history.

Charleston (S.C.).

Emanuel AME Church (Charleston, S.C.)--History.

Emanuel AME Church (Charleston, S.C.).

African American churches--History.

African American churches.

African Americans--Religion.

African Americans.

Physical Description:

x, 461 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), map ; 24 cm

illustrations

maps

plates

color

black and white

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Crown, [2025]

Summary:

"Few people beyond South Carolina's Lowcountry knew of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston--Mother Emanuel--before the night of June 17, 2015, when a twenty-one-year-old white supremacist walked into Bible study and slaughtered the church's charismatic pastor and eight other worshippers. Although the shooter had targeted Mother Emanuel--the first A.M.E. church in the South--to agitate racial strife, he did not anticipate the aftermath: an outpouring of forgiveness from the victims' families and a reckoning with the divisions of caste that have afflicted Charleston and the South since the earliest days of European settlement. Mother Emanuel explores the fascinating history that brought the church to that moment and the depth of the desecration committed in its fellowship hall. It reveals how African Methodism was cultivated from the harshest American soil, and how Black suffering shaped forgiveness into both a religious practice and a survival tool. Kevin Sack, who has written about race in his native South for more than four decades, uses the church to trace the long arc of Black life in the city where nearly half of enslaved Africans disembarked in North America and where the Civil War began. Through the microcosm of one congregation, he explores the development of a unique practice of Christianity, from its daring breakaway from white churches in 1817, through the traumas of Civil War and Reconstruction, to its critical role in the Civil Rights Movement and beyond. At its core, Mother Emanuel is an epic tale of perseverance, not just of a congregation but of a people who withstood enslavement, Jim Crow, and all manner of violence with an unbending faith." -- Provided by publisher

"A sweeping history of one of the nation's most important African American churches and a profound story of grace and perseverance amidst the fight for racial justice-from Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Kevin Sack." -- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

The open door

The tragedy

Charleston's African diaspora, free and enslaved

Church and state

Richard Allen and the insurgency of African Methodism

The African church

Hot bed: the insurrection plot

Crackdown: the Vesey aftermath

Revival: African Methodism returns South

Resurrection: a new church rises

Mother church, and the daddy of reconstruction

The long and stormy night

B. J. Glover and the gospel of resistance

The movement church

Clementa Pinckney and the paradox of Black power

Judgment day

The healing

Epilogue: on forgiveness and grace.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [431]-446) and index.

Local Notes:

Athenaeum copy: Miller Fund bookplate.

Other Format:

Online version Sack, Kevin Mother Emanuel

ISBN:

9781524761301

1524761303

OCLC:

1455748396