UICC's Fourth Annual Mother Emanuel Nine Memorial

On the evening of June 17, 2015 Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old white supremacist, assassinated nine African Americans, including the senior pastor, state senator Clementa C. Pinckney, during a prayer service at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. I use the word "assassinated" as opposed to the more common term "murdered" because Roof confessed to committing the shooting in the hope of igniting a race war. The shooting targeted one of the United States' oldest black churches, which has long been a site for community organization around civil rights.

In June of 2016 I attended the first annual memorial service held at Grace Chapel A. M. E. in Beaufort, SC. with my friend Rev. Nat Carter and was so moved that I immediately became involved with the organization now known as UICC, Unified Interfaith Community Coalition of Beaufort. Founded by Rev. Jeannine Smalls, this is our fourth year producing the event, this year returning to the Historic Grace Chapel, sister church to Mother Imanuel.

Out of that response to the 2015 shooting at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, a concerned group of Beaufort clergy and community leaders began gathering to reflect on how faith communities in Beaufort might come together in such a way as to build relationships across historic divisions, in hopes that this might reduce the chance of such violent and hateful acts occurring in our community. Although this annual memorial is our best known event we also have an annual New Years Interfaith gathering in alignment with the annual Governor's proclamation of January as South Carolina's Interfaith Harmony Month, and a number of other activities throughout the year.

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