From the Editor: June 2022

The Mother Emanuel 9 were studying the parable of the sower on the night of the tragic shooting. Seven years later, we have more to learn from this passage.
Illustration of Layli Long Soldier with her quote "People are poems, in themselves."
Layli Long Soldier is a poet, writer, author of Whereas, and citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation. / Illustration by Eugene Smith

ON JUNE 18, 2015, 350 leaders “committed to changing the world through faith and justice” came to Catholic University in Washington, D.C., for Sojourners’ annual gathering, The Summit. The planned sessions that day included “Criminalization of Blackness, Poverty, and Youth,” “Implicit Bias 2.0,” and “An Examination of Restorative and Transformative Justice Models.” As we gathered, we began to hear news of a horrible tragedy that had occurred the night before at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. We learned that nine church members were killed by a white supremacist during a Bible study. Our gathering became a time to hold one another in prayerful lamentation and shared grief.

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