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.

After the landmark case, Brown v Board of Education, the Little Rock school board agreed to desegregate their school system. Like most of the population at the time, the community of Little Rock fought back against the idea. Despite the backlash, the plan continued. In September of 1957, nine African American students were the first to enter the previously all-white Little Rock Central High School.