ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR A sweeping history of one of the nations most important African American churches and a profound story of courage and grace amid the fight for racial justicefrom Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist Kevin SackA masterpiece . . . a dense, rich, captivating narrative, featuring vivid prose . . . expansive, inspiring and hugely important.The New York Times Editors ChoiceRace, religion, and terror combine for an extraordinary story of America.Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., bestselling author of Begin AgainA BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Kirkus ReviewsFew people beyond South Carolinas Lowcountry knew of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in CharlestonMother Emanuelbefore the night of June , , when a twenty-one-year-old white supremacist walked into Bible study and slaughtered the churchs charismatic pastor and eight other worshippers. Although the shooter had targeted Mother Emanuelthe first A.M.E. church in the Southto agitate racial strife, he did not anticipate the aftermath: an outpouring of forgiveness from the victims families and a reckoning with the divisions of caste that have afflicted Charleston and the South since the earliest days of European settlement.Mother Emanuel explores the fascinating history that brought the church to that moment and the depth of the desecration committed in its fellowship hall. It reveals how African Methodism was cultivated from the harshest American soil, and how Black suffering shaped forgiveness into both a religious practice and a survival tool. Kevin Sack, who has written about race in his native South for more than four decades, uses the church to trace the long arc of Black life in the city where nearly half of enslaved Africans disembarked in North America and where the Civil War began. Through the microcosm of one congregation, he explores the development of a unique practice of Christianity, from its daring breakaway from white churches in , through the traumas of Civil War and Reconstruction, to its critical role in the Civil Rights Movement and beyond.At its core, Mother Emanuel is an epic tale of perseverance, not just of a congregation but of a people who withstood enslavement, Jim Crow, and all manner of violence with an unbending faith.
