Community Honors Charleston Shooting Victims

On June 17, 2015, a man opened fire during a bible study in Charleston, South Carolina, killing nine members, including Reverend Clementa Pinckney, the church’s pastor and a member of the South Carolina Senate. The perpetrator, Dylann Roof, planned this crime, which took place in the Charleston Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church. The church holds immense historical significance as a symbol of the Civil Rights Movement, and was founded by Morris Brown, an avid abolitionist, in 1816. Many civil rights activists, including Martin Luther King Jr., spoke at the Charleston Emanuel Church. This devastating event is just another example of the pertinence and persistence of racial discrimination in the United States.

The Spiritual Life Department at Choate and Choate Afro-Latino Student Alliance (CALSA) hosted a candlelight vigil and open-mic session at the Seymour St. John Chapel on Saturday to commemorate the nine lives lost in the Charleston Shooting as a community.

Before the Saturday vigil took place, Ms. Ally Brundige, known fondly as “Chappy B,” expressed her hopes for the event: “With an event like this, my primary hope as chaplain of the school is that it creates a safe space for those who want and need to reflect, speak, be together, and support one another in reckoning with the continued presence of racism and racialized violence in our nation and in our world, and whether [a] few [people] or many attend, that is my primary purpose. Of course it would be wonderful if a large portion of campus turned out to make that kind of stand against racialized violence and in this case, a white supremacist violence.”

On Saturday night, about thirty students and faculty members came together to address the issue and share their hopes and fears about the future of racial justice. While various clubs provide an opportunity for students to discuss different issues, the open-mic session provided a unique, intimate atmosphere in which students and faculty could open up about their own views and experience.

“I go to an AME church, which is the division of Christianity the victims were a part of. In our church, there is a huge focus on welcoming outsiders. It really struck me how horrifying it was. Since I grew up in the church, I was trained to give visitors everything you have, such as special care. For them to welcome him [Dylann Roof] with open arms and for him to murder them was awful. The vigil made me realize the scope of what happened and the scope of racism.” said Blair Cox ’17, secretary of CALSA.

The candlelight vigil also provided an opportunity for participants to learn more about the event from one another and reflect. While reading the news can act as a foundation for information, it can be hard to grasp the emotional depth of the event. Face-to-face discussions allowed the students to see the many facets and depth of the Charleston shooting.

“I thought a lot of what people said during the open-mic was heavy, but in a good way. It made me think about the shooting in a way I hadn’t thought about before. I didn’t really realize how deeply the shooting affected the people who weren’t directly connected to it,” Pascale Huntsinger ’17 said.

When questioned about the plans for the future, Chappy B said, “In general, it’s a personal mission of mine to stand against injustice, in this case racial injustice. It does not stop after Saturday’s vigil, and it doesn’t stop at the Choate border. I do hope we can continue to have conversations, and I think you all as students are doing countless things to inspire those conversations. Those conversations need to continue. I think we as faculty and administration are doing a lot for inclusion and justice, and we need to continue to grow those efforts.”

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