Shooting resurrects Charleston's troubled racial history
CHARLESTON, S.C. — Leon Turner got into a fight almost every week in sixth grade, a painful rite of passage for being one of the first black students to integrate schools here.
The first half of his life is tainted with vivid memories of students attacking him at Memminger Elementary School, being ridiculed by a teacher there as well and entering stores through back doors.
But over time, race relations in his hometown that has been dubbed "The Holy City" improved as neighborhoods diversified and economic opportunities for blacks increased, Turner, 61, said.
This week's gruesome shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church — one of the nation's most renowned black congregations — is resurrecting Charleston's troubled past. The city's history is steeped in slavery and the kind of racism that fueled the murder of nine people at a Wednesday evening bible study.
"Growing up in Charleston wasn't pretty," said Turner, a boiler technician and member of Emanuel AME for the past 50 years. "It was my toughest time. The white folks didn't care for us being in their school. I can remember the white fountain and the colored fountains.
"But Charleston has come a long way."
Dylann Roof, 21, is charged with opening fire on the group, discharging multiple shots into each victim, according to police affidavits. A white supremacist manifesto purportedly written by Roof to explain why he targeted the church says he had "no choice" but to target African Americans, whom he derides as "stupid and violent."
Fort Sumter, the site of the first shots fired in the Civil War, sits just half a mile from Emanuel AME Church. It's a reminder to many that Charleston holds a special place in history and in the peculiar institution's role.
"Racism is different in Charleston because of the history," said Tonetta Watson-Coleman, 52, who grew up in Charleston. "You had slave ships that stopped here. Black people got off the ships here."
Charleston is home to the Avery Research Center for African-American History and Culture. About half of all black Americans in the United States can trace their arrival to the country from the Charleston region, according to the Avery center site. In history, the city hosted a sizable free black population.
Watson-Coleman, a vocational consultant, said growing up she always felt the lingering influence of racism that gave many blacks the message that their roles should be as servants to whites.
Yet, some of the city's 128,000 residents said Wednesday's shooting doesn't represent the modern Charleston where people of all races live next door to each other and share similar ideals. Reminders of the Civil War and the failed slave rebellion of Denmark Vesey dot the city that today features trendy restaurants, a happening nightlife and gentrified neighborhoods.
"This hateful person came to this community with some crazy idea that he would be able to divide and all he did was make us more united and love each other even more," Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley Jr. said.
"This community wants to come together in prayer and unity and help each other — that's the way it is in Charleston and in the low country," he added, referring to southern parts of the state.
Former North Carolina state senator Malcolm Graham, 52, grew up in Charleston with his sister, Cynthia Hurd, who was killed Wednesday. He remembers playing on somewhat dilapidated tennis courts with other blacks as white players served on better maintained spaces. His mother worked as a domestic for a white family, a sign of the times, he said.
But over the years, Charleston evolved into a different sort of city, one that his older sister loved and loyally lived in all her life, he said.
"What happened at the church has nothing to do with Charleston," Graham said. "It has everything to do with hate. ... His action speaks to a larger issue of race nationwide."
Still, lingering prejudices continue to cloud some minds in this Southern city, said John Winthrop, 79, a tree farmer and mutual funds trustee who has lived in Charleston since 1988. Winthrop, who is white, said he regrets not making more black acquaintances and hopes Wednesday's shooting will inspire people to develop more interracial relationships.
"There is a hard core of people who haven't had too many experiences outside the state who tend to cling to their old ideas," he said. "The Confederate flag problem has to be faced up to. That statement won't make me many friends in Charleston among the white community, but that's the way I feel."
This week's tragic events reignited a national debate about whether South Carolina should stop flying the Confederate flag at its state Capitol.
Watson-Coleman is adamant that it is time to bring the flag down. "To most people it symbolizes servitude and slavery, the oppression of a group of people for no reason at all," she said. "To me that is so blatant. And, not to acknowledge it and recognize it, but to continue to fly it under the banner of pride, that's hurtful."
NAACP President Cornell William Brooks wants companies that do business in the state to push for its removal. He, like Winthrop, also believes what happened in Charleston reflects a troublesome culture that plagues the state and the nation.
"South Carolina does have a tradition dating back to Antebellum days of racism," Brooks said. "We don't want to single out the state as being uniquely bad. But, we do want to single out the state for being a candidate for a major set of reforms in terms of addressing bias and bigotry."
On Saturday, Graham sat crying across from one of the libraries where his sister spent 31 years working. He reflected on how she would have embodied the characteristics of the city she loved had she survived the attack.
"She would have been comforting those families," he said through tears. "She would have been a part of that leadership group trying to pull the community back together."