Monday letters: Emanuel massacre brought out best in people

I was outside of Emmanuel A.M.E. Church the Sunday after the massacre, and it was hot like any other Charleston summer day. To cool off, I stood over in a shady spot. That’s when I saw something I want to share:

An old black man was standing there when an old white man walked up to him. The white man said, “you don’t know me, but we’re brothers,” and shook the black man’s hand. They talked a few minutes, and had I not heard him say otherwise, I would have thought they had known one another for years.

The white man pointed to the Baptist church adjacent to Marion Square and said, “I’ve been going to that church for 50 years.”

When he started going to that church, the year was 1965. How much has the world changed since then? How much has that white man’s way of thinking changed since then?

What I saw would not have happened in the segregated Charleston of 1965.

I wish it could have happened earlier — that we didn’t need to see the worst in the world to bring out the best in people.

There weren’t any cameras nearby; these men were speaking only as two people, for themselves, and I was lucky to overhear it.

Change may happen slowly, and change may be messy. But it’s important to realize that the world is changing — for the better — with every passing day.

Columbia