Charleston Currents – Clementa Pinckney

GOOD NEWS: Pinckney, Haley, Riley to be honored by Institute

Staff reports | The Riley Institute at Furman University in January will honor the late state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, the pastor slain in June with eight worshippers in Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, with the David H. Wilkins Award for Excellence in Legislative Leadership, the Institute has announced.

Also to be recognized with the Wilkins Award for Excellence in Civic Leadership are S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley and outgoing Charleston Mayor Joe Riley, both of whom will speak at the event and discuss their collaboration during the crisis involving the deaths the Emanuel Nine.

by Charleston Currents · 12/07/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Good news, News briefs

8/3, full issue: Foundation, what’s next, Palmetto Poem

In the Aug. 3, 2015, issue, Charleston Currents outlines a new foundation by the Pinckney family. Andy Brack discusses the elephant in the state’s room — racial division. And Katrina Murphy offers a new Palmetto Poem.

Click to read lots more too.

by Charleston Currents · 08/03/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Full issue

FOCUS: Memorial in Charleston

By Jack Bass | JUNE 19, 2015 | The only time I sat in what is known in Charleston as Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church was in the early nineteen-sixties, when Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered a sermon. I was a reporter at that time, and I remember King speaking not as a civil-rights leader but as a preacher, with call and response to his message coming back from the congregation.

A few years ago, though, I met Mother Emanuel’s pastor, the Reverend Clementa Pinckney. Interested in getting to know him, I called one day to ask if we could meet, and he offered to come to my office. We visited for almost half an hour, talking about current issues before the state legislature. Pinckney was murdered at his church on Wednesday, along with eight members of his congregation. Now I regret not recalling more of our conversation.

by Charleston Currents · 06/22/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

"Mother" Emanuel AME Church, Charleston, S.C.

BRACK: Charleston shooting causes sadness, shock, anger, frustration

CHARLESTON, S.C., June 18, 2015 — As I headed to bed Wednesday night, a white gunman shot and killed nine people in an historic black church in the center of town just four blocks from where I used to live. Unaware of the evil, sleep came quickly.

But in the wee hours, the ping of a text from an Australian colleague woke me. I didn’t want to read it and tried to go back to sleep. But after tossing and turning, I read the text, only to learn the heart-wrenching news about what was going on a few miles away. I was dazed. Several instant reactions percolated and struggled to the surface:

by Andy Brack · 06/18/2015 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views