It was America at its worst: a hail-of-bullets hate crime.
Nine lives lost because of pathological racism. Nine members of a historically black Charleston congregation, including the pastor, gunned down in their church. Their house of worship. Their haven. Their sanctuary.
It was a crime as horrific in its execution as it was heinous in its purpose–to plunge a community into a race war.
Mercifully, it didn’t happen. That which was meant to horrendously divide, has ironically become a vehicle for unity and a reaffirmation, however tragically tested, of faith.
“A lot of folks expected us to do something strange, to break out in a riot,” said the Rev. Norvel Goff, a presiding elder. “Well, they just don’t know us. They don’t know … we are people of faith.”
Out of inexplicable horror comes an absence of malice. And a sense of coming together to defend good and defy evil. And a sense of “Charleston Strong.”
It was America, however forged, as we wish it to be.