On June 17, 2020, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will commemorate the fifth anniversary of the lynchings of Clementa C. Pinckney, Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel Lee Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, and Myra Thompson were murdered by a self-professed white supremacist while they were gathered for Bible study and prayer at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church (often referred to as Mother Emanuel) in Charleston, South Carolina.

Pastors Pinckney and Simmons were both graduates of the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary. The perpetrator of these crimes was also a member of an ELCA congregation. At the time Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton commented, “All of a sudden and for all of us, this is an intensely personal tragedy. One of our own is alleged to have shot and killed two who adopted us as their own. We might say that this was an isolated act by a deeply disturbed man,” she added. “But we know that is not the whole truth. It is not an isolated event. And even if the shooter was unstable, the framework upon which he built his vision of race is not. Racism is a fact in American culture. Denial and avoidance of this fact are deadly.”

An online ELCA Prayer Service for the Commemoration of the Emanuel Nine, including Bishop Eaton and leaders from around the ELCA, on June 17, 2020. More info at: elca.org/emanuelnine