June 29, 2015
In Eulogy of Slain Pastor: President Warns, Don't 'Slip Into a Comfortable Silence Again'
By Hazel Trice Edney
President Obama sings "Amazing Grace" as audience and presiding bishops join in. White House photo
AME Bishops stand behind the President as he gives the eulogy of Rev. Clementa Pinckney. White House photo
(TriceEdneyWire.com) – The words to that beloved old hymn, “Amazing Grace” were first recited. Then came the melody. No it wasn’t a choir; nor a guest soloist. It was the President of the United States.
President Barack Obama, already nicknamed the “comforter-in-chief” because of his proficiency in crisis, is now being called the “minister-in-chief” after the soul-stirring eulogy and closing song he rendered at the funeral of Pastor and State Senator Clementa Pinckney June 26.
The gleeful looks on the faces of the bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) belied the somberness of the occasion. Yet, even the family of the former pastor – killed by a White supremacist alongside eight others at a Wednesday night Bible study June 17 – appeared consoled by the song. Jennifer, his wife, and daughters Eliana and Malana were given deep hugs by the President, First Lady Michelle and Vice President Joseph Biden, who also attended.
“Clementa Pinckney found that grace!” the President concluded thunderously as the audience applauded. “Cynthia Hurd found that grace! Susie Jackson found that grace! Ethel Lance found that grace! DePayne Middleton-Doctor found that grace! Tywanza Sanders found that grace! Daniel L. Simmons, Sr. found that grace! Sharonda Coleman-Singleton found that grace! Myra Thompson found that grace!”
Speaking before a standing room only crowd in the auditorium of the College of Charleston as millions more watching by live television, the President rendered arguably his most poignant remarks on race since his 2008 election, at one point warning, "It would be a betrayal of everything Reverend Pinckney stood for, I believe, if we allowed ourselves to slip into a comfortable silence again."
He encouraged America to instead glean from and take action amidst the unthinkable tragedy that held the nation spellbound for two weeks.
“Maybe we now realize the way racial bias can infect us even when we don't realize it, so that we're guarding against not just racial slurs, but we're also guarding against the subtle impulse to call Johnny back for a job interview but not Jamal,” he said to applause. “So that we search our hearts when we consider laws to make it harder for some of our fellow citizens to vote. By recognizing our common humanity by treating every child as important, regardless of the color of their skin or the station into which they were born, and to do what’s necessary to make opportunity real for every American - by doing that, we express God’s grace.”
It appears that the heart-breaking moment in the life of America – similar to the 1963 church bombing that killed three little girls or even the 1955 murder of Emmett Till – has caused many to think more deeply about racism in America. Even many Republicans who have regularly opposed the removal of the Confederate Flag from the South Carolina State Capitol grounds have now agreed to its removal.
"Today we are here in a moment of unity in our state without ill will to say it is time to remove the flag from our capitol grounds," said Republican Gov. Nikki Haley, only days after the killings by 21-year-old terrorist Dylan Roof, who embraced the Confederate Flag. "This flag, while an integral part of our past, does not represent the future of our great state," Haley said.
In a moment of rare bi-partisanship, President Obama, in the eulogy – punctuated with applause - expounded upon why the flag must be removed.
“For too long, we were blind to the pain that the Confederate flag stirred in too many of our citizens,” he said. “It’s true, a flag did not cause these murders. But as people from all walks of life, Republicans and Democrats, now acknowledge - including Governor Haley, whose recent eloquence on the subject is worthy of praise - as we all have to acknowledge, the flag has always represented more than just ancestral pride. For Many, Black and White, that flag was a reminder of systemic oppression and racial subjugation. We see that now.”
The President continued, “Removing the flag from this state’s capitol would not be an act of political correctness; it would not be an insult to the valor of Confederate soldiers. It would simply be an acknowledgment that the cause for which they fought - the cause of slavery - was wrong. The imposition of Jim Crow after the Civil War, the resistance to civil rights for all people was wrong.
“It would be one step in an honest accounting of America’s history; a modest but meaningful balm for so many unhealed wounds. It would be an expression of the amazing changes that have transformed this state and this country for the better, because of the work of so many people of good will, people of all races striving to form a more perfect union. By taking down that flag, we express God’s grace.”
He connected the racist history and oppressive symbolism of the Confederate flag with the racial disparities that have become hardened across the nation. Among his examples, he pointed to children living in poverty, attending dilapidated schools, and joblessness.
“Perhaps it causes us to examine what we’re doing to cause some of our children to hate,” he said to applause. “Perhaps it softens hearts towards those lost young men, tens and tens of thousands caught up in the criminal justice system and leads us to make sure that that system is not infected with bias; that we embrace changes in how we train and equip our police so that the bonds of trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve make us all safer and more secure.”
The shocking fact that the nine, now called the “Charleston Nine”, were killed in a historic Black church - "Mother" Emanuel AME was even the more hurtful given the racial history of the Church, Obama pointed out.
“Our pain cuts that much deeper because it happened in a church. The church is and always has been the center of African-American life - a place to call our own in a too often hostile world, a sanctuary from so many hardships,” he said. “Over the course of centuries, Black churches served as “hush harbors” where slaves could worship in safety; praise houses where their free descendants could gather and shout hallelujah - rest stops for the weary along the Underground Railroad; bunkers for the foot soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement.
“They have been, and continue to be, community centers where we organize for jobs and justice; places of scholarship and network; places where children are loved and fed and kept out of harm’s way, and told that they are beautiful and smart - and taught that they matter…That’s what the Black church means. Our beating heart. The place where our dignity as a people is inviolate. When there’s no better example of this tradition than Mother Emanuel - a church built by blacks seeking liberty, burned to the ground because its founder sought to end slavery, only to rise up again, a Phoenix from these ashes.”
The President praised Pinckney as a politician and a pastor, saying, “He embodied a politics that was neither mean, nor small. He conducted himself quietly, and kindly, and diligently. He encouraged progress not by pushing his ideas alone, but by seeking out your ideas, partnering with you to make things happen. He was full of empathy and fellow feeling, able to walk in somebody else’s shoes and see through their eyes. No wonder one of his senate colleagues remembered Senator Pinckney as ‘the most gentle of the 46 of us - the best of the 46 of us.’”
After several years of growing racial unrest and both peaceful protests and raucous rebellion, the President warned that the push for justice must not end.
"It would be a betrayal of everything Reverend Pinckney stood for, I believe, if we allowed ourselves to slip into a comfortable silence again," he said. "Once the eulogies have been delivered, once the TV cameras move on, to go back to business as usual - that’s what we so often do to avoid uncomfortable truths about the prejudice that still infects our society. To settle for symbolic gestures without following up with the hard work of more lasting change - that’s how we lose our way again."