A few nights ago, I saw a young man crying in public on the side of Calhoun Street. I saw him before I could hear him since I was standing across the street from him. He wept inconsolably, sobbing with his waist slightly bent over so his arms could rest on the temporary fence placed there to keep people off the street. With his head tilted down and facing the ground, I could see his tear-filled eyes every time he lifted his head just a bit so as to take in some fresh air. Several women stood on either side of him. They were not crying, but rather looked on with great concern. As I approached the make-shift shrine made up of candles, flowers and heartfelt messages at the entrance of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, the weeping of the young African American man turned into an unsettling, deep wailing.
[Written for The Southern Cross]
“Perhaps he knew one of the nine victims murdered here,” the depths of his sorrow made me conclude. As I walked away into the darkness after paying my respects at the shrine, I thought more about this weeping man who could not be consoled. I considered that he may not have known any of the nine victims, and therefore was not weeping for the loss of a loved one, but rather, he was weeping for what such a cruel and senseless crime indicated about society today.
Our country has changed tremendously in the last fifty years in terms of racial relations. What would have been unthinkable in 1965, now is a reality. Progress has been achieved in the dismantling of century-old prejudices to the point that the first African American president was elected seven years ago. The weeping young man outside Mother Emanuel in Charleston lamented the reality that despite gains and progress, hard work, and sacrifice, much remains to be done. He wept because the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and millions of other Americans is still a dream that often struggles to become a reality. He wept because the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama that killed four girls seemed to repeat itself in Charleston. He wept because a Christian community opened its doors to a stranger, a young man who came to Bible Study, and these kind-hearted people ended up dead. Love always involves a risk, and these nine victims took the risk of showing this man love and they paid with their own lives.
I understand why this young man cried inconsolably in public. As his tears streamed gently onto the sidewalk of Calhoun Street, I continued to walk away, much more aware of the awful crime that happened at that place on June 17th of this year.
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