‘A powerful legacy': Mother Emanuel's impact on Charleston stretches from past to present

Yahoo

12-06-2025

'The legacy of African history and the African presence here in Charleston is extensive. It's expansive, it's resilient. You know, for for most of Charleston's history, and for that matter, for the state of South Carolina, the black population was the majority population here,' says Dr. Bernard Powers.
Powers has studied and written about Charleston's history and the church firmly rooted in the city's downtown. He knows all about the history of Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
'It was simply known as the African church in 1818, and these people wanted to control their own religious destiny, and they wanted to control their own religious heritage,' Powers told Channel 9's Ken Lemon. 'This is tremendous, when you think about it, because these are people who were mainly enslaved in Charleston, the center of slavery, and so they create the African church.'
Powers says the early years of Mother Emanuel were rife with threats.
'So this is a powerful legacy of these people's bid for freedom in the midst of slavery in Charleston. So that's one thing about it. Now, the church was persecuted here by the white authorities because they were afraid that this congregation would become the seedbed for insurrection and rebellion,' Powers said. 'The police and other officials, came in. They arrested members of the Church, jailed them, fined them. Some were whipped, but their spirit of religious determination could not be broken and they would continue to meet, that's powerful.'
This was at a time when Mother Emanuel's congregation had very little control over any other portion of their lives.
'That's right, absolutely, and people who were themselves considered to be property in the law,' Powers said.
Over time, Emanuel AME Church became a centerpiece of Charleston and the heartbeat of the Black community. The church became a home base for civil rights leaders. Booker T. Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. are among the national and local leaders to speak to members about inequality.
Hundreds of people met at the church and organized support for striking hospital workers. And it was still a driving force in the city in 1963, when future Charlotte city councilman Malcolm Graham was born there.
'Emanuel is home. Every morning, every Sunday morning, around 5:30, my mom would yell, Malcolm, Jackie, Cynthia, get up, we're going to church. And that meant we were going to Emanuel AME church right here on Calhoun Street. And my grandmother went here. My mother went here and sung in the choir, obviously, as a kid, Cynthia, Jackie and my siblings, we all went here, Sunday school, Easter speeches, Sunday choir,' Graham told Ken Lemon. 'It's comfortable, right? It's a familiar space. It's where I first met the Lord and joined the church. It's where I kind of got my morals and my ethics and my work habits, a sense of history of Charleston and the African American community.'
Graham played tennis at the courts not far from home, and his relationship with the game took him to Charlotte, where he played at Johnson C. Smith University. After college, Graham stayed in Charlotte; his sister, Cynthia Hurd, remained in Charleston.
'Cynthia was personable, she was sharp, she was candid. She was the first in our family to go to a four year college and university, Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia, the first to pledge a fraternity or sorority. Alpha Kappa, alpha, smart as a whip. Penmanship was immaculate, very rich in history and in research. Just loved to read. She was a book nerd. Loved the written word, a librarians, librarian, right?' Graham said.
She stayed close to the church, and it was a constant stable in her life, as it had been for generations of family members before.
Rev. DePayne Middleton Doctor was a newcomer in 2015, but she quickly became a welcome face and adored her new church family at Mother Emanuel. Her daughter, Kaylin Doctor-Stancil, now lives in Rock Hill, and she recalled the joy her mother had in the church.
'They accepted her with open arms. And I think she really wanted to make it a point that this is going to be my new family. This is where I'm going to be at and establish, you know, who she was there. And I think that's why she wanted to become a reverend there,' Doctor-Stancil said.
She and her sisters usually went to bible study with their mother. On the night of June 17, 2015, the siblings didn't want to go.
'I was still on a high from graduating. I was supposed to go get my license that day with her, so me and her were like texting back and forth about what time she was going to come home. You know, it's just like a typical, normal day,' Doctor-Stancil.
Graham said he had a phone conversation with his sister just before the shooting, and they were concerned about another sibling.
'It was really about focusing on my other sister, Jackie. Jackie just recently got diagnosed with a breast cancer, and we were making plans for Cynthia to travel from Charleston to Charlotte, jump in the car with me, and that we would ride to Virginia to check when Jackie heard first doctor's appointment, just kind of getting her ready for facing the battle that that she was dealing with,' Graham told Lemon.
'Did you ever get to make that visit?' Lemon asked.
'No, a day later, watching the news, breaking news, shooting at Emmanuel AME Church,' Graham said.
Cynthia and DePayne lost their lives in the shooting, along with seven other victims. They're now known as 'The Emanuel Nine.'
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