It’s hard to overstate the symbolic significance of the Charleston church where a man killed nine people last night in a horrific massacre. The church, Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, is the most historic black parish in Charleston, and the oldest black church, apparently, south of Baltimore. Indeed, just a few years after its founding, in 1822, it was investigated for its role in planning for a slave rebellion which, had authorities not infiltrated it, could have been the most ambitious the U.S. ever saw. The leader of that plot, the free black Denmark Vesey, was executed for his role in it; the original church building was burned; and a ban on black churches forced the parish to meet in secret until after the end of the Civil War. Abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson wrote about Vesey for The Atlantic in 1861.
Police have deemed last night’s killing a hate crime, and the suspect appears to be a white nationalist — it’s hard to imagine a reason not to call it an act of terrorism.