Mother Emanuel Nine: Their Influence Was Wide
Mother
Emanuel African Methodist
Episcopal Church Nine
Senior pastor state senator
Name meaning “merciful”
Church eldress, oldest to be shot
Great grandnephew tries to shield her
First and youngest shot
College administrator and pastor
Doctor her last name not a title
Sunday school teacher
Track coach and pastor
Librarian
Church sexton
Seventy-four-year-old pastor
Two played dead
All women except two men
Shot while praying
And being black (and trusting).
Say their names:
Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, forty-five
Susie Jackson, eighty-seven
Myra Thompson, fifty-nine
Daniel Simmons, seventy-four
Ethel Lance, seventy
Cynthia Hurd, fifty-four
DePayne Middleton Doctor, forty-nine
Clementa Pinckney, forty-one
Tywanza Sanders, twenty-six
In one of the oldest black churches (older than the Confederate flag)
Denmark Vesey cofounder
Two hundred and three years old
Mother Emanuel
African
Methodist
Episcopal
Church
Nine
Remember Birmingham Sunday?
This horror unfolded on a Wednesday.
Mother Emmanuel
African
Methodist
Episcopal
Church
Nine
Say their names
Source: Poetry (July/August 2024)