For years, Alana Grant could not bring herself to enter the basement of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, where her grandfather, the Rev. Daniel Lee Simmons, had attended his final Bible study.
Now, fear has given way to gratitude and hope. A completed memorial stands in the courtyard near the church’s front entrance, honoring the “Emanuel Nine,” the Black worshippers killed by an avowed white supremacist in 2015.
The memorial offers a public place to remember what happened, Grant said as she and her husband, state Rep. Hamilton Grant, viewed it for the first time.
The long-awaited memorial at the South’s oldest African Methodist Episcopal church opens to the public Saturday.
Designed for remembrance and reflection, the marble memorial centers on a Fountain of Grace, representing God’s enduring love and mercy. Water pours from a shallow basin engraved with the names of the six women and three men who were killed. Two Fellowship Benches, with curved backs that shelter those seated, stand on either side of the fountain. A Cross of Hope represents redemption after suffering. A garden dedicated to the five survivors is planned for a later phase.
The Rev. Eric Manning, co-chair of the Mother Emanuel Memorial Foundation board, hopes the site will speak to every visitor.
“I was standing out there the other day,” said Manning, who assumed leadership after pastor and state Sen. Clementa Pinckney was killed. “For just a moment, I felt a sense of peace.”
How the memorial is helping victims’ families
Grant views the memorial as a way to begin conversations with her three young children about their great-grandfather. Because the shooting has been so widely documented, she does not want them to learn about it from someone else.
“I spent a great deal of time thinking and praying about it,” she said. “I want them to go so they can understand what brought me to South Carolina.”
Malcolm Graham, a former North Carolina state senator and Charlotte City Council member, attended the 2023 groundbreaking. His sister, Cynthia Graham Hurd, was killed while sheltering beneath a desk in the fellowship hall. He has been looking forward to visiting the memorial and remembering “all the good times Cindy and I had as kids growing up, and being at the church and going to Sunday school.”
A library, scholarship and other honors already bear the accomplished librarian’s name. The memorial will now preserve her legacy as well.
“She told me before she died that I was the most famous person in the family,” Graham said. “She is the most famous person in our family, and I still look up to her.”
Grant says the survivors who will be honored with a garden have shown “nothing short of heroism” by continuing to live with the memories of the shooting.
“There are not many places where you get to see and honor the survivors. As Black people, we have survived so much,” Grant said.
A church memorial designed for everyone
When a committee began searching for an architect in 2017, designers from around the world expressed interest, said John Darby, another co-chair of the memorial foundation and the head of a Charleston real estate development firm. Rather than asking finalists to submit design proposals, the committee requested written responses to challenging questions, including questions about forgiveness.
That unusual approach proved remarkably forward-thinking, said Michael Arad, an architect of the 9/11 Memorial whose design was selected. In his response, he wrote about his admiration for the victims’ families, many of whom extended forgiveness to the gunman.
Arad, a white Jewish New Yorker who had never visited South Carolina, spent more than a year immersing himself in the community after being chosen. He said conversations with congregation members and research into the church’s 200-year history were vital. Although the 9/11 Memorial was a larger undertaking, he said, this project was no less complicated.
“My responsibility as a designer was to help visitors see and hear what had always been here,” he said. “Stories like this shape how we understand ourselves as Americans, as does the way we respond to them.”
Arad called emotionally demanding projects “a tremendous privilege” and said he “could not imagine turning down a project like this.”
Over the past decade, the foundation has raised about $25 million for the memorial, garden and related expenses, Darby said. Much of the money came from foundations, endowments and corporations.
“It was one of those efforts people wanted to support,” Darby said. “We did not want the cost to become a burden for the church.”
Memorial inspires hope of learning from hate and tragedy
Founded in 1818, Mother Emanuel was built by both free and enslaved people. During the 20th century, it became a center of resistance, hosting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders of the civil rights movement.
The families of the Emanuel Nine applauded in 2015 when Gov. Nikki Haley removed the Confederate battle flag from state buildings. But as Republican officials fuel backlash against diversity and equity initiatives, Graham said, “racism, hatred and discrimination continue to be this country’s Achilles’ heel.”
Grant has spent years seeking support for a hate crimes law. Her husband is among the lawmakers who backed legislation named for Pinckney that would have added enhanced penalties for hate crimes to South Carolina’s criminal code. The bill failed, despite the fact that one of the state’s senators was among the Emanuel Nine.
Grant hopes the memorial will build “generational awareness” and motivate younger people to oppose hate. Visitors already come to the church each day out of curiosity or sympathy; she hopes they will leave the memorial inspired to act.
“We want more than your thoughts and prayers. We want your advocacy,” she said.
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