South Carolina has a long, violent, and racist history, effectively setting a morbid backdrop for the events that unfolded on June 17, 2015. The Charleston shooting occurred in a church named the Emanuel African Methodist Episocopal Church (A.M.E.) The church had become somewhat of a hub for social justice and political activism. Denmark Vesey was one of the founders of the church and used it as a homebase for what the National Park Service describes as, “an enslaved insurrection” against slave-owners and both city and state officials. Douglas R.