In June 2015, after a young white supremacist murdered nine members of Charleston, South Carolina’s historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Bernard Powers, Professor of History at the College of Charleston, joined with co-authors to explain the background and meaning of that tragic event which immediately became the focus of our nation’s conversations on race, violence, history, and forgiveness. The resulting book, We Are Charleston: Tragedy and Triumph at Mother Emanuel, explores the history of the AME denomination and Emanuel’s place in it, the lives of those who were killed and their extraordinary families as well as the way racism still manifests itself in American life today.