The 2015 Charleston Shooting--Gallery Submission, Fitch (Revised, Dec 2021)

Created by Lauren Fitch on Fri, 12/10/2021 - 22:12

People Mourning at Charleston Church after Shooting
Loading...
Loading...
People Mourning at Charleston Church after Shooting
Download full-size image

Description: 

This image was taken after the shooting that killed 9 people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. In it, it is clear to see the hundreds of people gathered outside the church, mourning and praying for the victims and the community. Hundreds of reporters flooded to the church that day, desperate to get a peak at the church and what was going on outside of it. As the days and weeks followed, reporters began to fade and people went back to their normal, albeit slightly heavier, lives. Dylann Roof pleaded guilty to all murder charges and became the first person in the United States to be sentenced to death for a hate crime. As of August of 2021, the judges in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that sentence when Roof attempted to appeal it. However, the Associated Press with NPR writes that in July 2021, the Attorney General put a stop to all federal executions for further review among the Department of Justice. 

Today, Roof is 27 years old. He is currently in a death row facility in a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. If the death penalty is seen through, Roof will die of lethal injection. As for the community of Charleston, multiple organizations have been opened to help the community.  A foundation for Reverend Pinckney, one of the victims of the shooting, was set up by a close friend.  A reverend from another Charleston church led the Illumination Project, which is described by Debbie Elliott as, “...[a project] designed to build trust between black communities and Charleston police” due to the continued violence against black individuals (npr.org). The Charleston community has healed and made progress towards racial justice within their community, but more action will be needed as the nation pushes ahead.

Works Cited

“Charleston Church Shooting.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charleston_church_shooting. Web.

Elliott, Debbie. “5 Years after Charleston Church Massacre, What Have We Learned?” NPR, NPR, 17 June 2020, www.npr.org/2020/06/17/878828088/5-years-after-charleston-church-massacre-what-have-we-learned. Web.

Kennedy, Merrit. “Dylann Roof Pleads Guilty to State Murder Charges for Charleston Church Attack.” NPR, NPR, 10 Apr. 2017, www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/04/10/523279175/dylann-roof-pleads-....

Press, The Associated. “Judges Uphold the Death Sentence for Dylann Roof Who Killed 9 Black Churchgoers.” NPR, NPR, 25 Aug. 2021, www.npr.org/2021/08/25/1031086866/dylann-roof-death-sentence-upheld-char.... Web. 

Zoppo, Avalon. “Charleston Shooter Dylann Roof Moved to Death Row in Terre Haute Federal Prison.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 23 Apr. 2017, www.nbcnews.com/storyline/charleston-church-shooting/charleston-shooter-dylann-roof-moved-death-row-terre-haute-federal-n749671. Web.

Copyright: 

©

Associated Place(s)

Layers

Timeline of Events Associated with The 2015 Charleston Shooting--Gallery Submission, Fitch (Revised, Dec 2021)

The 2015 Charleston Shooting--Fitch Timeline Submission (Revised, Dec 2021)

17 Jun 2015

In South Carolina in 2015, a 21-year-old white man named Dylann Roof shot and killed nine people.  The shooting was in Charleston at a Black church, and all nine victims were Black church-goers.  Roof sat with the victims and other members for over an hour studying the Bible before he pulled out a gun and began the massacre.  Brent C. Talbot quotes Dylann Roof who, when prompted by victim Tywanza Sanders before his death, stated, “‘I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go’” (Talbot 2). 

News outlets such as CNN and Fox News heavily covered the attack in the days that followed the murders.  This is important to note because news networks give information to millions of Americans with certain, subtle undertones and narratives.  Roof had (and still has) an intensely racist background; however, this can be overshadowed or outright ignored based on how news networks and social media platforms consistently deliver updates.  Mohammed el-Nawawy and Mohamad Hamad Elmsary conducted research about the way networks spoke of the shooting, specifically AC 360 on CNN.  According to them, AC 360 focused on the positivity and grace the Charleston community possessed following the attacks.  However, when speaking of Roof himself, the news anchors did not address him by name or show pictures of him.  Instead, they spoke of him as a troubled young man who had prior trouble with drugs and racist ideologies (el-Nawawy and Elmasry 950).  Right-wing show The O’Reilly Factor consistently inserted personal bias from O’Reilly himself and did very little reporting on the event itself; instead, the show connected the shooting to politics of America, focusing mostly on how the Second Amendment needed protecting more than ever.  O’Reilly also made a significant point of saying that institutional racism no longer exists, so the shooting could not be connected back to it or structural violence (el-Nawawy and Elmasry 950). 

The debate went on for days and thoroughly divided America. The background of the shooting was filled with cries for the removal of Confederate statues around the nation--the shooting only exacerbated those pleas and arguments against them. Through popular, national news coverage, Dylann Roof and the nine victims--Reverend Clementa Pinckney, Tywanza Sanders, Reverend Sharonda Singleton, Cynthia Hurd, Reverend DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Ethel Lace, Susie Jackson, Myra Thompson, Reverend Daniel Simmons Sr.--made tragic history in the ongoing battle of racism in America.

 

Works Cited

el-Nawawy, Mohammed, and Mohamad Hamas Elmasry. "Is America “Post-Racist”? How AC 360 and The O’Reilly Factor discursively constructed the Charleston church shooting." Journalism Studies 19.7 (2018): 942-959. Web. 

Talbot, Brent C. "“Charleston, Goddam”: An Editorial Introduction to ACT 14.2." Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education 14.2 (2015). Web. 

The 2015 Charleston Shooting--Fitch Timeline Submission (Revised, Dec 2021)

Dec.
Jan.
Feb.
March
April
May
June
July
Aug.
Sept.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
Jan.
Feb.
March
April
May
June
July
Aug.
Sept.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
Jan.
Feb.
March
April
May
June
July
Aug.
Sept.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
Jan.
Jan.
March
April
May
May
June
July
Aug.
Sept.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
Jan.
Feb.
March
April
May
June
July
Aug.
Sept.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
Jan.
Feb.
March
April
May
June
July
Aug.
Sept.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
Jan.
Feb.
March
April
May
June
July
Aug.
Sept.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
Jan.
Feb.
March
April
May
June
July
Aug.
Sept.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
Jan.
Feb.
March
April
May
June
July
Aug.
Sept.
Oct.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
Jan.
Feb.
March
April
May
June
July
Aug.
Sept.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
Jan.
Feb.
March
April
May
June
July
Aug.
Sept.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
Jan.
Feb.
March
April
May
June
July
Aug.
Sept.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
Jan.
Feb.
March
April
May
June
July
Aug.
Sept.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
Jan.
Feb.
March
April
May
June
July
Aug.
Sept.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
Jan.
Feb.
March
April
May
June
July
Aug.
Aug.
Sept.
Oct.
Nov.
March 17
March 18
March 19
March 20
March 21
March 22
March 23
March 24
March 25
March 26
March 27
March 28
March 29
March 30
March 31
April 2
April 3
April 4
April 5
April 6
April 7
April 8
April 9
April 10
April 11
April 12
April 13
April 14
April 15
April 16
April 17
April 18
April 19
April 20
April 21
April 22
April 23
April 24
April 25
April 26
April 27
April 28
April 29
April 30
May 2
May 3
May 4
May 5
May 6
May 7
May 8
May 9
May 10
May 11
May 12
May 13
May 14
May 15
May 16
May 17
May 18
May 19
May 20
May 21
May 22
May 23
May 24
May 25
May 26
May 27
May 28
May 29
May 30
May 31
June 2
June 3
June 4
June 5
June 6
June 7
June 8
June 9
June 10
June 11
June 12
June 13
June 14
June 15
June 16
June 17
June 18
June 19
June 20
June 21
June 22
June 23
June 24
June 25
June 26
June 27
June 28
June 29
June 30
July 2
July 3
July 4
July 5
July 6
July 7
July 8
July 9
July 10
July 11
July 12
July 13
July 14
July 15
July 16
July 17
July 18
July 19
July 20
July 21
July 22
July 23
July 24
July 25
July 26
July 27
July 28
July 29
July 30
July 31
Aug. 2
Aug. 3
Aug. 4
Aug. 5
Aug. 6
Aug. 7
Aug. 8
Aug. 9
Aug. 10
Aug. 11
Aug. 12
Aug. 13
Aug. 14
Aug. 15
Aug. 16
Aug. 17
Aug. 18
Aug. 19
Aug. 20
Aug. 21
Aug. 22
Aug. 23
Aug. 24
Aug. 25
Aug. 26
Aug. 27
Aug. 28
Aug. 29
Aug. 30
Aug. 31
Sept. 2
Sept. 3
Sept. 4
Sept. 5
Sept. 6
Sept. 7
Sept. 8
Sept. 9
Sept. 10
Sept. 11
Sept. 12
Sept. 13
Sept. 14
Sept. 15
TimelineJS

Part of Group:

Engaging English (F21 ENGL 20200-002 Purdue)

Featured in Exhibit: 

Gallery: Race, Gender, Class, Sex
Artist Unknown

Image Date: 

The middle of the month Jun 2015