Legal Defense Fund (LDF) Director-Counsel Janai S. Nelson issued the following statement to mark ten years since the tragic racial hate crime mass murder of a Black pastor and parishioners by a white gunman at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina:
“Ten years ago, we witnessed the depths of depravity and the darkest of evils when a white supremacist brutally executed a group of Bible study worshippers as they prayed. It was a day of unbearable tragedy, grief, and pain – and a painful reminder of the pernicious and persistent threat of racial terror.
“Since then, loved ones, church members, and community residents have done the hard work of turning pain into purpose, horror into hope and rage into resilience – becoming a beacon of strength and light to the rest of the country, even as our nation remains gripped by a climate of racially and politically motivated violence. Dylann Roof may have taken nine lives that tragic day, but he can never take the unyielding spirit and unshakeable faith of Mother Emanuel, a church that has stood at the forefront of the struggle for racial justice for more than two centuries.
“Mother Emanuel lives on in all of us as we work each day in pursuit of a more just, equitable, and fair world – a world where a crime as heinous as the one committed ten years ago can never happen again. That remains our North Star, and may the spirit and strength of Mother Emanuel continue to guide us toward it.”
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Founded in 1940, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) is the nation’s first civil rights law organization. LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the Legal Defense Fund or LDF. Please note that LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957—although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights.
