Opinions from around South Carolina: Emanuel AME Church, the segregationists’ flag, ‘Stalinist purge’

God with us

Over its long, difficult and yet triumphant history, Emanuel AME Church has inspired people to remember “God with us” — a translation of the name Emanuel. God was with the church and its members during years of racial oppression and strife. God was with them after the 1886 earthquake leveled the wooden church building, which was replaced by the present masonry structure. And God was with them as members baptized their young, celebrated marriages, and buried their dead.

So it was altogether fitting that, in the aftermath of the devastating slaying of nine church members at a Bible study Wednesday night, the community looked to Emanuel for guidance and comfort that God is with us. …

The vigil was notable for what it wasn’t. It wasn’t used to condemn but to uplift. The anguished mourners focused on their faith, not on anger.

Segregation’s flag

It cannot be ignored that when the Confederate flag went up in 1961 our state was stubbornly resisting efforts to end segregation and extend the full benefits of freedom to black citizens who had long been denied the American birthright of liberty. The Confederate flag was raised in Columbia years before public schools were desegregated, and at a time when our black citizens could not enjoy a meal in most restaurants or a night in most hotels. Headlines during that era fully captured the climate in which the Confederate flag was raised in proud defiance of a changing world and allowed to remain long after the Civil War centennial ended.

Efforts to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse grounds have been vigorously propelled forward by an unspeakable tragedy in Charleston last week that resulted in the murder of nine faithful members of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. The Confederate flag so boldly displayed in front of the seat of our state government did not fire the bullets that killed those precious people, but the flag in such a prominent spot undermines the powerful displays of unity of the past week.

‘Stalinist purge’

Unfortunately, even at this early stage, we are hearing what can only be characterized as hysterical distortion on the issue. State Sen. Lee Bright, R-Spartanburg, likened the effort to remove the flag from the Statehouse grounds as a “Stalinist purge.”

Politicians are frequently guilty of hyperbole and overstatement, but Bright’s statement is over the top. He might want to dust off his history books and re-read the accounts of the two-year Soviet purge that began in 1936.

Hundreds of thousands of Russians were accused of political crimes, most of which were trumped up. The prisoners were either quickly executed by shooting or sent to the Gulag labor camps, where they often died of starvation, disease, exposure and overwork.

▪  “An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.”

▪  “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”