EARLY PRAISE & REVIEWS
“All at once Kevin Sack's Mother Emanuel is harrowing, despairing and inspiring. From a moment by moment account of the evening of the massacre to a final, brilliant discussion of the meaning of forgiveness in Christianity and other traditions, Sack writes lyrically, from deep research, and with an unforgettable message about tragedy and resilience not only in that horrible summer of 2015 but over 200 years of this famous church. The book is both a modern psalm and a testimony, a work of scholarship and a cry in the night. Sack brings a journalist's sense of granular detail and a historian's grasp of a deep history over time to this painful subject. It is a religious story about flawed and heroic people full of grace and a city and a country tortured by hatred, exploitation, and murder. But Mother Emanuel still lives, perhaps stronger than ever on Calhoun Street, an institution no variation on the Confederacy can ever kill.” — David W. Blight, Sterling Professor of History and African American Studies, Yale University, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.
"Mother Emanuel is more than an account of an historic church in Charleston and a horrific day on June 17, 2015. In Kevin Sack’s hands, Dylann Roof’s callous murder of nine people during Bible study opens a window into the power of the Black Church in an historic city in the American South. Race, religion, and terror combine for an extraordinary story of America, the resilience of a people, and their capacity to forgive in order to live with unimaginable grief. A powerful book – especially for times such as these." — Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., James S. McDonnell Distinguished Professor of African American Studies, Princeton University, and author of Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own
"This brilliant work of American history is also a whodunit. It opens with a horrific crime – a young white supremacist strolls into Charleston’s historic African American church and opens fire on a peaceful Bible study class, slaying nine. Decent people react with shock and horror: “How could this happen here?” And, later, in disbelief: "Why are the survivors forgiving the shooter?" In Mother Emanuel, Kevin Sack offers a deeply researched, eloquent page-turner of an answer to both questions, taking us from colonization and the African slave trade to modern times. Along the way, we feel the myriad ways the past still weighs on us, and we meet visionaries inspired by a more generous Bible, and a more democratic America, than the ones they inherited." — Melissa Fay Greene, author of Praying For Sheetrock and The Temple Bombing
“This book shook me with its power and beauty. Kevin Sack tells the story of a moment of racial terror that turned into an opportunity for grace — and from that terrible story produces an insightful and inspiring work of history. Mother Emanuel is a book of enormous ambition, meticulously researched, gorgeously written, and deeply fulfilling.” — Jonathan Eig, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for King: A Life
“Mother Emanuel begins as the tale of a vicious crime and a forgiving church, but turns into an epic story of Black life and becoming that spans 200 years. Beautifully written, a marvel of research, the book is set in one of the old corners of the South, peopled with 100 personalities and filled with as many subplots. Kevin Sack renders a portrait of Black Americans in every generation since the Revolution. Big in historical scale but granular in personal detail, Mother Emanuel transcends the church of its title and the crime that made it famous. It feels like a monument to Black America that takes the form of a book.”
— Edward Ball, winner of the National Book Award for Slaves in the Family and author of Life of a Klansman
“A gracefully written book about one church and the tragic death of nine martyrs, which also narrates a critical history of enslavement, the search for freedom, and the hatreds that are animated with each new generation. Few accounts of racism and violence in the United States provide such rich and sensitive narrative about how much we all suffer as a result of the nation’s original sins. Breathtaking and beautiful!” — Marcia Chatelain, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America
“Mother Emanuel is a masterpiece…Sack, a former reporter for The New York Times, delivers a dense, rich, captivating narrative, featuring vivid prose, prodigious research and a palpable emotional engagement that is disciplined by a meticulous attention to the facts. His excavation is an essential addition to existing histories and ought to be recognized as a singular journalistic performance...In creating “Mother Emanuel” over the course of a decade, he consulted a formidable array of scholarly sources and primary texts, and interviewed scores of Emanuel’s congregants along with historians and theologians. His pages teem with information often eloquently conveyed, leaving his readers as enthralled as he is with his expansive, inspiring and hugely important subject.” — Randall Kennedy for The New York Times — Book Review: ‘Mother Emanuel,’ by Kevin Sack - The New York Times
“A sweeping tale that bears witness to a living history of African American Christianity rooted in one singular congregation…In Mother Emanuel, Sack puts forth a gripping exploration into how centuries of white supremacy impacted the church and the witness of faith against a deluge of hatred. The book examines how forgiveness could be granted in light of shocking evil. And after centuries of Black suffering, is forgiveness radical or repressive? Sack makes the case that the answers come only by “studying the church’s historical and theological origins” to “better understand the grace summoned” by those who pronounced forgiveness. Resistance, forgiveness, and race form the book’s subtitle, and rightly so. There is no accurate portrayal of the African American Christian experience without these three realities. The history of Mother Emanuel as a congregation can be summarized as resistance—of which forgiveness is a practice—in the face of centuries of racism.” — Claude Atcho, for Christianity Today — Mother Emanuel and the Witness of Black Christian Faith - Christianity Today
“His rigorous account of the connection between Charleston and America’s second-largest mainline Black denomination is itself a valuable contribution to AME history and discourse, and to American history more broadly. What makes Sack’s work particularly valuable is his exploration of the role of forgiveness in Black life generally, and Black Christian life specifically. He deftly captures centuries of stories and people who shaped Mother Emanuel, culminating in that horrid summer evening when keepers of that flame gathered to study the Bible in the company of any who wished to join them. What emerges from his magisterial account of African Methodism is a distinct way of life fashioned by proud people who simply wanted to practice their faith without restraint. It stands as a worthy commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the murder of nine beautiful souls gathered in a time-honored tradition of a church they loved.” — John L.S. Simpkins, for The Post and Courier — Book review: 'Mother Emanuel' by Kevin Sack
“A sobering, expertly told history of the struggle for equality as waged from pulpit and pew.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred)