Memorial opens honoring victims of the 2015 Charleston church massacre

It took Alana Grant years to find the strength to set foot in the basement of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, where her grandfather, the Rev. Daniel Lee Simmons, attended his final Bible study.

Her fears have been replaced by gratitude and hope now that there is a completed memorial in a courtyard by the front door for the “Emanuel Nine,” the Black churchgoers killed by an avowed white supremacist in 2015.

The memorial provides a public space where “people can go and remember really what happened here,” Alana Grant said as she and her husband, state Rep. Hamilton Grant, got their first look.

On Saturday, the long-planned memorial at the South's oldest African Methodist Episcopal Church opens to the public.

Emphasizing remembrance and reflection, the marble memorial is anchored by a Fountain of Grace, symbolizing God's eternal love and mercy. Water flows from a shallow basin etched with the names of the six women and three men slain. Two Fellowship Benches with curved backs, sheltering anyone seated, flank the fountain. There is also a Cross of Hope, signifying redemption in the wake of suffering. A garden honoring the five survivors will come next.

The Rev. Eric Manning, co-chair of the Mother Emanuel Memorial Foundation board, hopes it will mean something to everyone.

“I was actually standing out there the other day,” said Manning, who took over after pastor and state Sen. Clementa Pinckney was among those killed. “Just for a moment, a peace came over me.”

Grant sees the memorial as a place to inspire conversations with her three small children about their great-grandfather. Because the facts of the shooting have been so public, she doesn't want them to hear more from someone else.

“I spent a lot of time thinking about it and praying about it,” she said. “I do want them to go so that they can kind of see what even brought me to South Carolina.”

Former North Carolina state senator and Charlotte City Councilman Malcolm Graham, whose sister Cynthia Graham Hurd died huddled under a desk in the fellowship hall, attended the 2023 groundbreaking. He has anticipated visiting the memorial to reflect on “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 awards now carry the name of the accomplished librarian. Now she'll live on in the memorial, too.

“She said 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.”

As for the survivors to be honored with a garden, Grant says their living with memories of the shooting is “nothing short of heroism.”

“There are not a lot of spaces where you get to see the survivors. We as Black people have survived so much,” Grant said.

When a committee sought an architect in 2017, they heard from designers all over the world, said John Darby, another memorial foundation co-chair who runs a Charleston real estate development firm. The final candidates were not asked to submit design proposals, but instead give written responses to deep questions on topics like forgiveness.

That unconventional request was very prescient, said Michael Arad, an architect on the 9/11 Memorial whose design was ultimately chosen. He wrote about his admiration for the victims' families who offered forgiveness to the shooter.

A white, Jewish New Yorker who had never visited South Carolina, Arad did a deep-dive into the community for more than a year after he was selected. Having lengthy conversations with members of the congregation and researching the church's 200-year history was essential, he said, and while the 9/11 memorial was a bigger endeavor, this design wasn't any less complex.

“My job as a designer was to allow people who visit the site to see and hear what was here all along,” he said. “We understand who we are as Americans through stories like this, through our response.”

Arad said he embraces emotionally weighted projects as “a tremendous privilege” and he “could not imagine turning down a project like this.”

The foundation has raised around $25 million over the last decade for the memorial, garden and other costs, much of it from foundations, endowments and corporations, Darby said.

“It was one of those things that people wanted to be a part of,” Darby said. “We don't want it to be an expense to the church.”

Established in 1818, Mother Emanuel was built by free and enslaved people. In the 20th century, the church became a place of resistance where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights figures spoke.

The Emanuel Nine's families applauded in 2015 when Gov. Nikki Haley removed the Confederate battle flag from state buildings. But with Republicans stirring an angry backlash against diversity and equity efforts, Graham said “racism, hatred and discrimination continue to be this country's Achilles' heel.”

Alana Grant has tried over the years to gather support for a hate crimes statute, and her husband is among the lawmakers who pushed legislation named for Pinckney that would add enhanced penalties for hate crimes to South Carolina's criminal code. It failed to pass, even though a senator was among the Emanuel Nine.

She sees this memorial as an opportunity to raise “generational awareness” so younger people will campaign against hate. Tourists still come to the church daily out of curiosity or sympathy, and could leave the memorial feeling inspired.

“We want more than your thoughts and prayers. We want your advocacy,” she said.