For Immediate Release:

Contact: Michele Setteducato, 732-614-3818, michele@fitzgibbonmedia.com

Yesterday, nine individuals of the Black community were shot and killed inside the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Rashad Robinson, Executive Director of ColorOfChange.org released this statement in response: “The ColorOfChange community offers its deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of those killed in this unspeakable tragedy and the AME community at large. This day will be remembered as one of the worst mass shootings targeting South Carolina’s Black community in history.

Yesterday’s massacre confirms that for Black communities, there is no safe haven from the violence and brutality of racism, not even a house of worship. AME churches have long served as beacons of Black autonomy, spirituality and liberation. This church is the largest and oldest Black congregation south of Baltimore.

We support the Department’s Civil Rights Division, the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office decision to investigate this hate crime and are confident they will prosecute those responsible to the fullest extent of the law.

More than 52 years after the Birmingham Church bombing, which galvanized the civil rights movement, we are forced to face the reality that Black life is under attack. Let this be a call to action for every person in America. The hard work of undoing systemic racism and building a country where Black folks are free from both state and vigilante violence, cannot wait.

Nothing short of a national people-led movement to transform the policies, practices, institutions and culture that keep anti-Black racism alive will prevent us from mourning yet another tragic massacre 50 years from now.”