Grace Will Lead Us Home

Grace Will Lead Us Home: the Charleston church massacre and the hard, inspiring journey to forgiveness by Jennifer Berry Hawes,  311 pages

This is a reporter's extended and behind-the-scenes account of the terrorist attack that killed nine black congregants in their church on June 17, 2015. Dylann Roof posted pictures of himself with a confederate flag and other white nationalist symbols, told a friend of his intent to murder black church people, posted a white nationalist manifesto, drove to the church, joined and was welcomed by the pastor and members of a bible study held at Mother Emmanuel AME Church, and then, late in the meeting, brandished his gun and killed Myra Thompson who was in the process of ordination and was leading the study for the first time, Pastor & State Senator Clementa Pinckney and seven others.

Most of the above is common knowledge along with the public confrontation and courtroom forgiveness initiated by Nadine Collier, daughter of Ethel Lance, who Dylann Roof had murdered and President Obama's eulogy for Senator/Pastor Pinckney, where he broke forth into "Amazing Grace." What is less know are the stories of Steve Hurd and others who could not forgive, the survivor's struggles to forgive members of their own family, the questions about subsequent church leadership, concerns about Emmanuel leadership's handing of financial donations, the personal and institutional difficulties of the church and its members in moving forward, the history of generations of the church members and leaders -- which included co-founder by Denmark Vesey who planned a massacre to throw off the yoke of slavery but was hung himself in July of 1822 along with 35 others. Such real life stories fill out the headlines and the transitory news and help us to have some understanding of the deep pain, struggles and history of the June 2015 massacre in Charleston.

Gateway to Equality

Gateway to Equality: Black Women and the Struggle for Economic Justice in St. Louis by Keona K.Ervin, 269 pages

Ervin frames the book with two national protests in which black women in St. Louis organized an effective worker strike in 1933 and a renters strike in 1969. Before and between those major successes, Gateway to Equality identifies the backgrounds and passions of about a dozen major female organizers in St. Louis who had national experience and impact. The book highlights major justice work in the twentieth century and the central roles of female St. Louis activists during this time. 

Before cell phones and text messages, hundreds of women organized a strike across different plants because their wages were unlivable at $4.60 per week and had been lowered six times. Despite the general conceptual and organizational divide between church and communist perspectives, the women combined insights, organizing and emotions in their leadership. They organized to focus on issues of survival and justice, and to include rather than isolate different perspectives. 

Gateway reviews movements where women led in CORE and Southern Tenant Farmers Union; organized strikes for garment workers; organized boycotts and strikes for jobs against a defense contractor, banks, drug stores and neighborhood shops; ran effective campaigns for city and state political positions; created fair housing legislation; wrote reports on Missouri prisons; and organized unions.

In 1969 black working-class women led thousands of public-housing tenants from Pruitt-Igoe, Carr Square, Vaughn and Cochran developments in a strike against St. Louis Housing Authority (SLHA). The substance of their strike was an expression of dignity and a public demand for respect: the public needed to know that working women who made $75 a month in wages could not afford to pay $55 per month to house, feed, clothe and transport themselves and their children. They and their supporters carried signs that read “Sure Fire Riot Control—Lower Rent,” “March Now—Eat Later,” “Make the Roaches Pay Rent Too!” They demanded lower rents, increased representation on housing board commissions, improved maintenance, better pest control and police protection, improved utility services and financial transparency of the SLHA. Their protest was covered by national news, drew from a rich history of organizing by black women, gained almost all of its objectives, and influenced local, state and national housing policies.

Keona Ervin’s Gateway to Equality is important justice history, women’s history, and St. Louis history.