In SC, Biden recalls son’s death and visit to Mother Emanuel after church shooting
In a vulnerable moment during a CNN town hall Wednesday night, former Vice President Joe Biden recalled traveling to Charleston in the wake of the 2015 shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church and the feelings of loss he felt for his son, who died weeks before from brain cancer.
In Charleston Wednesday night, less than a mile away from where nine black parishioners, including a state senator, were killed by an avowed white supremacist invited into their Bible study, Biden shared his experience of loss after being asked about his faith from a family member of one of the victims.
The former vice president said the June 2015 visit he made to the church with President Barack Obama in the wake of the shooting reopened wounds from his son Beau Biden’s May 2015 death. In that visit, Biden attended a church service at Mother Emanuel.
“I went back to the church because I found particularly … that there’s that famous phrase from Kierkegaard, ‘Faith sees best in darkness,’ “ Biden said Wednesday night. “It gives me some reason to have hope and purpose.”
Biden quietly recounted to attendees at the town hall that Beau Biden asked his father to “stay engaged” and find purpose after his death.
“Every day I get up, I literally … I ask myself, ‘I hope he’s proud of me today,” Biden said. “It took a long time for me to get to the point to realize that purpose would save me.”
Biden said he was also inspired by the ability of the families of the Mother Emanuel shooting victims to forgive shooter Dylann Roof, and the drive they had to create change in the aftermath.
“It made me realize that to forgive is divine,” Biden said. “You changed. You brought down that Confederate flag. You changed the attitude in this state and made it come down.”
This story was originally published February 26, 2020 at 9:25 PM.
