TO THE EDITOR:
As a child, I spent a portion of every summer between the banks of the Ashley and the Cooper visiting my mother’s family in Charleston. There, I would climb on Civil War cannons at the Battery as if they were playground equipment. I did not understand what these giant black barrels were originally used for or why they existed.
While I had been to Fort Sumter and the former slave market, my childhood experience in Charleston never lingered on these prejudices. My image of Charleston was viewed through the lens of a childhood naivete that simply never had to face the reality of this city’s history.
As I got older, the truth of Charleston’s history began to sink in. I realized how deep-seated this discrimination was: deep enough that it can’t be changed as easily as the laws on the book. Prejudice morphs and evolves and perhaps gets diluted a bit with each generation, but events like Wednesday’s prove that this prejudice is still alive.
On June 18, I woke up to the news of the 9 people killed at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. I was shattered by the reality of this hate crime. The weight of the matter is only intensified by the fact that the church was co-founded by Denmark Vesey, leader of an 1822 slave revolt that was brutally put down. 193 years later, but a brutal manifestation of hatred and prejudice remains.
This year, as a campus community, we have participated in a discussion of the residual traces of intolerance that remain from our University’s past. In our classification as a “flagship southern public school” we recognized that we couldn’t have become such an institution without a past tainted by injustice.
I think UNC and Charleston find themselves at the same fork in the road: how do we remember the past while fostering a more compassionate future? I am reminded of the quote by Martin Luther King, Jr: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
Let us extend love to one another, especially in this time of grieving. Let us educate kids like me — who obliviously play on the cannons — of this brutal past, vow “never again” and begin to share understanding and grace with one another. It’s the only way toward the light, the only way toward beginning to heal.
Frances Cayton
