Remarks by the President in Eulogy for
the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney
June 26, 2015
College of
Charleston
Charleston,
South Carolina
2:49 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Giving all praise and honor to God. (Applause.)
The Bible calls us to hope. To persevere, and have faith in things not
seen.
“They were still living by faith when
they died,” Scripture tells us. “They did not receive the things promised; they
only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were
foreigners and strangers on Earth.”
We are here today to remember a man of
God who lived by faith. A man who
believed in things not seen. A man who
believed there were better days ahead, off in the distance. A man of service who persevered, knowing full
well he would not receive all those things he was promised, because he believed
his efforts would deliver a better life for those who followed.
To Jennifer, his beloved wife; to Eliana
and Malana, his beautiful, wonderful daughters; to the Mother Emanuel family
and the people of Charleston, the people of South Carolina.
I cannot claim to have the good fortune
to know Reverend Pinckney well. But I
did have the pleasure of knowing him and meeting him here in South Carolina,
back when we were both a little bit younger.
(Laughter.) Back when I didn’t
have visible grey hair. (Laughter.) The first thing I noticed was his graciousness,
his smile, his reassuring baritone, his deceptive sense of humor -- all
qualities that helped him wear so effortlessly a heavy burden of expectation.
Friends of his remarked this week that
when Clementa Pinckney entered a room, it was like the future arrived; that
even from a young age, folks knew he was special. Anointed.
He was the progeny of a long line of the faithful -- a family of
preachers who spread God’s word, a family of protesters who sowed change to
expand voting rights and desegregate the South.
Clem heard their instruction, and he did not forsake their teaching.
He was in the pulpit by 13, pastor by
18, public servant by 23. He did not
exhibit any of the cockiness of youth, nor youth’s insecurities; instead, he
set an example worthy of his position, wise beyond his years, in his speech, in
his conduct, in his love, faith, and purity.
As a senator, he represented a sprawling
swath of the Lowcountry, a place that has long been one of the most neglected
in America. A place still wracked by
poverty and inadequate schools; a place where children can still go hungry and
the sick can go without treatment. A
place that needed somebody like Clem.
(Applause.)
His position in the minority party meant
the odds of winning more resources for his constituents were often long. His calls for greater equity were too often
unheeded, the votes he cast were sometimes lonely. But he never gave up. He stayed true to his convictions. He would not grow discouraged. After a full day at the capitol, he’d climb
into his car and head to the church to draw sustenance from his family, from
his ministry, from the community that loved and needed him. There he would fortify his faith, and imagine
what might be.
Reverend Pinckney embodied a politics that
was neither mean, nor small. He
conducted himself quietly, and kindly, and diligently. He encouraged progress not by pushing his
ideas alone, but by seeking out your ideas, partnering with you to make things
happen. He was full of empathy and fellow
feeling, able to walk in somebody else’s shoes and see through their eyes. No wonder one of his senate colleagues
remembered Senator Pinckney as “the most gentle of the 46 of us -- the best of
the 46 of us.”
Clem was often asked why he chose to be
a pastor and a public servant. But the
person who asked probably didn’t know the history of the AME church. (Applause.)
As our brothers and sisters in the AME church know, we don't make those
distinctions. “Our calling,” Clem once said, “is not just within the walls of
the congregation, but…the life and community in which our congregation
resides.” (Applause.)
He embodied the idea that our Christian
faith demands deeds and not just words; that the “sweet hour of prayer”
actually lasts the whole week long -- (applause) -- that to put our faith in
action is more than individual salvation, it's about our collective salvation;
that to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and house the homeless is not just
a call for isolated charity but the imperative of a just society.
What a good man. Sometimes I think that's the best thing to
hope for when you're eulogized -- after all the words and recitations and
resumes are read, to just say someone was a good man. (Applause.)
You don’t have to be of high station to
be a good man. Preacher by 13. Pastor by 18.
Public servant by 23. What a life
Clementa Pinckney lived. What an example
he set. What a model for his faith. And then to lose him at 41 -- slain in his
sanctuary with eight wonderful members of his flock, each at different stages
in life but bound together by a common commitment to God.
Cynthia Hurd. Susie Jackson. Ethel Lance.
DePayne Middleton-Doctor. Tywanza
Sanders. Daniel L. Simmons. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton. Myra Thompson. Good people.
Decent people. God-fearing people.
(Applause.) People so full of
life and so full of kindness. People who
ran the race, who persevered. People of
great faith.
To the families of the fallen, the
nation shares in your grief. Our pain
cuts that much deeper because it happened in a church. The church is and always has been the center
of African-American life -- (applause) -- a place to call our own in a too
often hostile world, a sanctuary from so many hardships.
Over the course of centuries, black
churches served as “hush harbors” where slaves could worship in safety; praise
houses where their free descendants could gather and shout hallelujah --
(applause) -- rest stops for the weary along the Underground Railroad; bunkers
for the foot soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement. They have been, and continue to be, community
centers where we organize for jobs and justice; places of scholarship and
network; places where children are loved and fed and kept out of harm’s way,
and told that they are beautiful and smart -- (applause) -- and taught that
they matter. (Applause.) That’s what happens in church.
That’s what the black church means. Our beating heart. The place where our dignity as a people is
inviolate. When there’s no better
example of this tradition than Mother Emanuel -- (applause) -- a church built
by blacks seeking liberty, burned to the ground because its founder sought to
end slavery, only to rise up again, a Phoenix from these ashes. (Applause.)
When there were laws banning all-black
church gatherings, services happened here anyway, in defiance of unjust
laws. When there was a righteous
movement to dismantle Jim Crow, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached from its
pulpit, and marches began from its steps.
A sacred place, this church. Not
just for blacks, not just for Christians, but for every American who cares
about the steady expansion -- (applause) -- of human rights and human dignity
in this country; a foundation stone for liberty and justice for all. That’s what the church meant. (Applause.)
We do not know whether the killer of
Reverend Pinckney and eight others knew all of this history. But he surely sensed the meaning of his
violent act. It was an act that drew on
a long history of bombs and arson and shots fired at churches, not random, but
as a means of control, a way to terrorize and oppress. (Applause.)
An act that he imagined would incite fear and recrimination; violence
and suspicion. An act that he presumed
would deepen divisions that trace back to our nation’s original sin.
Oh, but God works in mysterious
ways. (Applause.) God has different ideas. (Applause.)
He didn’t know he was being used by
God. (Applause.) Blinded by hatred, the alleged killer could
not see the grace surrounding Reverend Pinckney and that Bible study group -- the
light of love that shone as they opened the church doors and invited a stranger
to join in their prayer circle. The
alleged killer could have never anticipated the way the families of the fallen
would respond when they saw him in court -- in the midst of unspeakable grief,
with words of forgiveness. He couldn’t
imagine that. (Applause.)
The alleged killer could not imagine how
the city of Charleston, under the good and wise leadership of Mayor Riley --
(applause) -- how the state of South Carolina, how the United States of America
would respond -- not merely with revulsion at his evil act, but with
big-hearted generosity and, more importantly, with a thoughtful introspection
and self-examination that we so rarely see in public life.
Blinded by hatred, he failed to
comprehend what Reverend Pinckney so well understood -- the power of God’s
grace. (Applause.)
This whole week, I’ve been reflecting on
this idea of grace. (Applause.) The
grace of the families who lost loved ones.
The grace that Reverend Pinckney would preach about in his sermons. The grace described in one of my favorite
hymnals -- the one we all know: Amazing
grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. (Applause.)
I once was lost, but now I’m found; was blind but now I see. (Applause.)
According to the Christian tradition,
grace is not earned. Grace is not
merited. It’s not something we
deserve. Rather, grace is the free and
benevolent favor of God -- (applause) -- as manifested in the salvation of
sinners and the bestowal of blessings.
Grace.
As a nation, out of this terrible
tragedy, God has visited grace upon us, for he has allowed us to see where
we’ve been blind. (Applause.) He has given us the chance, where we’ve been
lost, to find our best selves.
(Applause.) We may not have
earned it, this grace, with our rancor and complacency, and short-sightedness
and fear of each other -- but we got it all the same. He gave it to us anyway. He’s once more given us grace. But it is up to us now to make the most of
it, to receive it with gratitude, and to prove ourselves worthy of this gift.
For too long, we were blind to the pain
that the Confederate flag stirred in too many of our citizens. (Applause.)
It’s true, a flag did not cause these murders. But as people from all walks of life,
Republicans and Democrats, now acknowledge -- including Governor Haley, whose
recent eloquence on the subject is worthy of praise -- (applause) -- as we all
have to acknowledge, the flag has always represented more than just ancestral
pride. (Applause.) For many, black and white, that flag was a
reminder of systemic oppression and racial subjugation. We see that now.
Removing the flag from this state’s
capitol would not be an act of political correctness; it would not be an insult
to the valor of Confederate soldiers. It
would simply be an acknowledgment that the cause for which they fought -- the
cause of slavery -- was wrong -- (applause) -- the imposition of Jim Crow after
the Civil War, the resistance to civil rights for all people was wrong. (Applause.) It would be one step in an honest
accounting of America’s history; a modest but meaningful balm for so many
unhealed wounds. It would be an
expression of the amazing changes that have transformed this state and this
country for the better, because of the work of so many people of goodwill,
people of all races striving to form a more perfect union. By taking down that flag, we express God’s
grace. (Applause.)
But I don't think God wants us to stop
there. (Applause.) For too long, we’ve been blind to the way
past injustices continue to shape the present.
Perhaps we see that now. Perhaps
this tragedy causes us to ask some tough questions about how we can permit so
many of our children to languish in poverty, or attend dilapidated schools, or
grow up without prospects for a job or for a career. (Applause.)
Perhaps it causes us to examine what
we’re doing to cause some of our children to hate. (Applause.)
Perhaps it softens hearts towards those lost young men, tens and tens of
thousands caught up in the criminal justice system -- (applause) -- and leads
us to make sure that that system is not infected with bias; that we embrace
changes in how we train and equip our police so that the bonds of trust between
law enforcement and the communities they serve make us all safer and more
secure. (Applause.)
Maybe we now realize the way racial bias
can infect us even when we don't realize it, so that we're guarding against not
just racial slurs, but we're also guarding against the subtle impulse to call
Johnny back for a job interview but not Jamal.
(Applause.) So that we search our
hearts when we consider laws to make it harder for some of our fellow citizens
to vote. (Applause.) By recognizing our common humanity by
treating every child as important, regardless of the color of their skin or the
station into which they were born, and to do what’s necessary to make
opportunity real for every American -- by doing that, we express God’s
grace. (Applause.)
For too long --
AUDIENCE: For too long!
THE PRESIDENT: For too long, we’ve been blind to the unique
mayhem that gun violence inflicts upon this nation. (Applause.) Sporadically, our eyes are open: When eight of our brothers and sisters are
cut down in a church basement, 12 in a movie theater, 26 in an elementary
school. But I hope we also see the 30
precious lives cut short by gun violence in this country every single day; the
countless more whose lives are forever changed -- the survivors crippled, the
children traumatized and fearful every day as they walk to school, the husband
who will never feel his wife’s warm touch, the entire communities whose grief
overflows every time they have to watch what happened to them happen to some
other place.
The vast majority of Americans -- the
majority of gun owners -- want to do something about this. We see that now. (Applause.)
And I'm convinced that by acknowledging the pain and loss of others,
even as we respect the traditions and ways of life that make up this beloved
country -- by making the moral choice to change, we express God’s grace. (Applause.)
We don’t earn grace. We're all sinners. We don't deserve it. (Applause.)
But God gives it to us anyway.
(Applause.) And we choose how to
receive it. It's our decision how to
honor it.
None of us can or should expect a
transformation in race relations overnight.
Every time something like this happens, somebody says we have to have a
conversation about race. We talk a lot
about race. There’s no shortcut. And we don’t need more talk. (Applause.)
None of us should believe that a handful of gun safety measures will
prevent every tragedy. It will not. People of goodwill will continue to debate
the merits of various policies, as our democracy requires -- this is a big, raucous
place, America is. And there are good
people on both sides of these debates.
Whatever solutions we find will necessarily be incomplete.
But it would be a betrayal of everything
Reverend Pinckney stood for, I believe, if we allowed ourselves to slip into a
comfortable silence again.
(Applause.) Once the eulogies
have been delivered, once the TV cameras move on, to go back to business as
usual -- that’s what we so often do to avoid uncomfortable truths about the
prejudice that still infects our society.
(Applause.) To settle for
symbolic gestures without following up with the hard work of more lasting
change -- that’s how we lose our way again.
It would be a refutation of the
forgiveness expressed by those families if we merely slipped into old habits,
whereby those who disagree with us are not merely wrong but bad; where we shout
instead of listen; where we barricade ourselves behind preconceived notions or
well-practiced cynicism.
Reverend Pinckney once said, “Across the
South, we have a deep appreciation of history -- we haven’t always had a deep
appreciation of each other’s history.”
(Applause.) What is true in the
South is true for America. Clem
understood that justice grows out of recognition of ourselves in each
other. That my liberty depends on you
being free, too. (Applause.) That history can’t be a sword to justify
injustice, or a shield against progress, but must be a manual for how to avoid
repeating the mistakes of the past -- how to break the cycle. A roadway toward a better world. He knew that the path of grace involves an
open mind -- but, more importantly, an open heart.
That’s what I’ve felt this week -- an
open heart. That, more than any
particular policy or analysis, is what’s called upon right now, I think -- what
a friend of mine, the writer Marilyn Robinson, calls “that reservoir of
goodness, beyond, and of another kind, that we are able to do each other in the
ordinary cause of things.”
That reservoir of goodness. If we can find that grace, anything is
possible. (Applause.) If we can tap that grace, everything can
change. (Applause.)
Amazing grace. Amazing grace.
(Begins to sing) -- Amazing grace --
(applause) -- how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me; I once was
lost, but now I’m found; was blind but now I see. (Applause.)
Clementa Pinckney found that grace.
Cynthia Hurd found that grace.
Susie Jackson found that grace.
Ethel Lance found that grace.
DePayne Middleton-Doctor found that
grace.
Tywanza Sanders found that grace.
Daniel L. Simmons, Sr. found that
grace.
Sharonda Coleman-Singleton found that
grace.
Myra Thompson found that grace.
Through the example of their lives,
they’ve now passed it on to us. May we
find ourselves worthy of that precious and extraordinary gift, as long as our
lives endure. May grace now lead them
home. May God continue to shed His grace
on the United States of America.
(Applause.)
END
3:28 P.M. EDT
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