Left to right: The Rev. Ramelle McCall, the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina’s canon for justice and future leaders; the Rev. Eric S.C. Manning, pastor of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, in Charleston, known colloquially as Mother Emanuel; the Rev. Michael Shaffer, rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church; and the Rev. Adam Shoemaker, rector of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church. On June 17, 2025, the Episcopal church leaders participated in an ecumenical worship service at Mother Emanuel, observing 10 years since a white supremacist shot and killed nine Black parishioners during a Bible study session there on June 17, 2015. Photo: Courtesy of Michael Shaffer
[Episcopal News Service] Downtown Charleston, South Carolina’s three historically Black Episcopal churches, known collectively as the Three Churches United, will celebrate Juneteenth while also observing 10 years since the massacre at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
“Even though Juneteenth is going to be a celebration, I think it’s also going to be a heavy day for a lot of people,” the Rev. Adam Shoemaker, rector of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, one of the Three Churches United, told Episcopal News Service. “There’s a long shadow of white supremacist history that we have in Charleston, and the shooting being motivated by white supremacy has added a double trauma for our city these past 10 years.”
St. Stephen’s, located a third of a mile from Emanuel AME Church, will host the Juneteenth worship service and celebration on Sunday, June 22. The Rev. Ricardo Bailey, rector of Calvary Episcopal Church, another of the Three Churches United, will preach. Shoemaker will preside. The event will be an opportunity to reflect, pray and honor the nine people who died in the shooting at Emanuel AME Church, known colloquially as Mother Emanuel because it’s the oldest AME church in the Southern United States.
On June 17, 2015, white supremacist and neo-Nazi Dylann Roof, then 21 years old, entered Mother Emanuel during a weekly Bible study. He shot and killed nine Black parishioners, including senior pastor and state senator the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney. Roof confessed to wanting to start a race war. He’s now on death row in an Indiana federal prison awaiting execution.
After Roof was arrested, investigators found in his car a list of Black churches, including Mother Emanuel and Calvary.
Juneteenth commemorates the date in 1865 when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to ensure that all enslaved people in the Confederate states were freed. This came two-and-a-half years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863. Still, the order couldn’t be enforced everywhere until after the end of the Civil War on April 9, 1865.
Even though Juneteenth will have a more somber tone for the Charleston community this year, Bailey told ENS that it’s still possible to find joy amid such a tragedy.
“What people fail to realize is that the Black church is not just a church where you go to feel good, get some good music, some good preaching or whatever, but the Black church is a living testimony of the command of Jesus Christ,” Bailey said. “Look at what happened to Mother Emanuel 10 years ago, and look at what happened to the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963. The shooting, the bombing – all these things were done to silence the powerful potential of the church of Jesus Christ and the Black community having a voice. People have come in to bomb churches and to annihilate the word of God, but we keep going.”
Reported hate crimes against Black people more than doubled between 2014 and 2022 and exceeded all other race and ethnically targeted hate crimes combined in 2022, according to FBI records. Most hate crime offenders were white. Hate crimes are underreported due to jurisdictions differing in how to define them, leaving law enforcement oftentimes unable to categorize incidents as hate crimes, according to the National Institute of Justice.
White nationalism, especially white Christian nationalism, has also been growing in recent years.
During the ecumenical worship service at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on June 17, 2025 observing 10 years since a mass shooting killed nine people at the parish during a Bible study session, Gabby Giffords – a former U.S. Representative from Arizona and, since surviving an assassination attempt in 2011, a gun violence prevention activist – and her husband, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, spoke about closing the “Charleston Loophole.” It enabled white supremacist and neo-Nazi Dylann Roof to be able to legally purchase a gun despite having a prior drug charge. Photo: Courtesy of Michael Shaffer
The Rev. Michael Shaffer, rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, the last of the Three Churches United, told ENS he thinks Episcopalians should do everything they can to help combat white nationalism in their communities, which may in turn prevent future tragedies like the shooting at Mother Emanuel.
“I think The Episcopal Church has this history of being nice and following decorum all the time, but we can’t be silent anymore,” Shaffer said. “Juneteenth is a reminder that as people of God, we’re called to speak out against injustice and stand up for those whose voices need to be heard.”
In 2020, the Charleston-based Diocese of South Carolina recommitted to its racial reconciliation work by forming the Diocesan Racial Justice and Reconciliation Commission. This commission aimed to increase awareness of racial history and promote and enable racial justice and reconciliation throughout the diocese and in wider communities. Part of those racial reconciliation efforts includes maintaining and sustaining the diocese’s historically Black churches and working to hire additional Black clergy.
The commission, which includes clergy and laity, regularly hosts educational events throughout the year and facilitates the diocese’s Sacred Ground circles. The commission also hosts learning days to teach the history of the Diocese of South Carolina, including its complicity in slavery.
Established in 1663, South Carolina was the first British North American colony founded as a “slave society.” Charleston was the largest slave trading and auction city in the United States and had the highest number of enslaved people in the country by the 18th century.
In March, the Three Churches United led a diocesan pilgrimage to civil rights landmarks, museums and memorials in Atlanta, Georgia, and Montgomery and Selma, Alabama, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the three, 54-mile Selma to Montgomery marches organized by civil rights activists to demand that voting rights be granted to Black Americans.
Shaffer and Shoemaker are founding members of Everyday People, a new social justice organization that aims to eliminate white supremacy in government through Fasting Fridays, an economic protest inspired by Moral Mondays, which calls on people to abstain from spending money on Fridays. As part of Juneteenth and Mother Emanuel observations this week, Everyday People hosted its first press conference on June 18 at Circular Congregational Church in downtown Charleston.
“We’re not only decrying the white supremacy that collectively impacted Charleston 10 years ago, but also the instances of white supremacy that we have seen since then,” Shoemaker said.
When she was elected bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina in 2021, the Rt. Rev. Ruth Woodliff-Stanley knew immediately that she wanted to prioritize racial reconciliation during her episcopate. She was rector of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Denver, Colorado, and actively involved with Denver’s local Black Lives Matter chapter when the shooting occurred at Mother Emanuel.
“I was enraged to learn that people were studying Scripture and welcoming the stranger amongst them – in other words, living the Gospel – when they were brutally murdered,” Woodliffe-Stanley told ENS in a phone interview. “As we talked about it in our circles in Denver, it recommitted me as a religious leader to the work of reckoning with our past and committing to racial justice … and I think the work the Three Churches United and the racial justice commission are doing is very powerful.”
On the day of the remembrance, June 17, Shoemaker, Schaffer and more than 60 members of the Three Churches United participated in an ecumenical worship service at Mother Emanuel. The service focused on healing, hope, reflection and renewal in honor of the deceased.
During the service, Chris Singleton, whose mother, the Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, an assistant pastor at Mother Emanuel, was killed in the shooting, spoke about resilience. Gabby Giffords – a former U.S. Representative from Arizona and, since surviving an assassination attempt in 2011, a gun violence prevention activist – and her husband, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, spoke about closing the “Charleston Loophole” that enabled Roof to be able to legally purchase a gun despite having a prior drug charge.
Shoemaker said the service was “moving but emotionally exhausting.”
Shaffer agreed.
“We were all reminded that we are called by God to turn our pain and suffering into fuel for change and a better future,” Shaffer said. “This is not the work of a day, week or month, but the work of lifetimes.”
-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.
Check out was real simple, can't wait for the tote bag