We don’t know much about Dylann Storm Roof, but one of the questions we will want answered is just how calculated his actions were on Wednesday, June 17th, when he entered the famous Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on Calhoun Street, sat for an hour of Bible study, and then murdered nine members of the congregation.
Did Roof know that slaughtering blacks in churches is an established horror in Southern history? Did he know that the very founding of black churches was one of the first steps forward in slave liberation? Or that the A.M.E. Church into which he walked is considered by many to have been co-founded by Denmark Vesey, the legendary leader credited with planning what might have been the largest slave rebellion in Southern history, had he not been found out beforehand and hung? Did Roof know that Vesey’s rebellion was foiled on June 17, 1822? He lived some two hours from Charleston and yet showed up at that church, on that day. Can all that be coincidence?…MORE