‘Forgiveness Is Complicated’: One Woman’s Journey Following the Mother Emanuel Shootings

The Rev. Sharon Risher still vividly remembers the nightmarish evening of June 17, 2015.

That’s when her mother, Ethel Lance, and cousins Susie Jackson and Tywanza Sanders were gunned down at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C.

They had been attending an evening Bible study at the historic Black church when a young white man showed up at the door. The congregants invited him to join them. He murdered nine people.

In the days that followed, a grief-stricken Risher — a Dallas hospital chaplain who had grown up attending the church — was barely able to get out of bed. She watched in shock as some of the relatives of the victims told the killer in a televised court hearing, “I forgive you.”

Risher says she found that maddening. She could not forgive. 

In the decade since then, she has channeled her pain into activism, speaking about gun safety around the country. Along the way, she met President Obama, addressed the Senate Judiciary Committee, and wrote a memoir, For Such a Time as This. She has also become an advocate to abolish the death penalty — even while the man who killed her loved ones, white supremacist Dylann Roof, sits on death row.

“The whole time, I’ve tried to be authentic,” she says. “I’ve been the oddball in this whole Emanuel nine saga from the beginning: I’m one of the few that don’t want him executed, but I’m also one of the few that didn’t give the instant forgiveness. I’ve always been truthful about these raw emotions.”

Risher spoke with Rolling Stone about her life and work, to mark the 10th anniversary of the tragedy at Mother Emanuel.

Your interest in the death sentence began when you attended the trial of the killer. After doing some research, you learned that the death penalty disproportionately affects Black people and poor people, and you decided to get involved. How do the families of the nine people killed at Mother Emanuel feel about your activism?
First of all, the death penalty is an issue that so many people just don’t even want to talk about or deal with. It is a very complicated issue. I’m one, maybe one or two out of those nine families that don’t want Dylann Roof to be executed. So that puts me in another space. When we all get together and they’re yelling, “Fry that motherfucker!” I’m sitting there thinking, that ain’t what Jesus would want us to do. So I feel that tension whenever I get together with the nine families. 

It gets into your soul, this thing, the death penalty. It wears you down. But I truly believe that executing somebody does not make things better. I don’t believe that Jesus would execute somebody. And my faith is not just about me preaching. My faith is action. And so, trying to abolish the death penalty and doing the gun-violence prevention are things that come out of my faith and me being a person of action. With all of the craziness that’s going on in the world today, it’s up to the people who profess to be who they are; if they don’t stand up, then we are going to get what we are going to get. 

Gun violence continues to dominate the news. Do you feel that you’ve seen any progress?
No, because people feel unsafe. And that’s a big part of the gun problem: People have convinced themselves that they are unsafe, that they need guns. And guns as a means of feeling safe, that’s some bullshit. Guns too easily get into the hands of the wrong people—a killer, or a child. But folks like us will never stop trying because we have done some good; there have been laws that have changed. So we’ll keep doing what we do, and maybe one day, all we can hope for, I guess, to be realistic, is a drop in gun violence.

After speaking around the country for a couple of years about your mother, who was deeply involved with the church, you were able to forgive the killer. But it was quite a journey to get there.
Forgiveness is complicated. And that forgiveness piece was hard for me because I didn’t want to forgive; I just didn’t feel it in the beginning. I went through the spiritual journey of not wanting to think about God—I stopped going to church, didn’t read the Bible—to then going back, feeling guilty, and just really having a hard time. Finally, God spoke to my heart and said, “You could let this go. Let me take care of this.” And so, you forgive, if you are a person of faith, because how many times has God forgiven you? Who am I to say, “I’m not going to forgive you. I’m going to stand in judgment of you when God hasn’t stood in judgment of me.”

I was speaking at an interfaith service in Virginia when I said it out loud, publicly: “I forgive you, Dylann Roof.” Then my eyes got blurry. I hadn’t planned to say it. It was like, wait a minute, hold up! Wait, wait! I kept trying to find my place in the sermon, to get back to what I was supposed to be saying. I felt like I was getting ready to faint. When I was able to get myself back together, I explained to people what was happening with me. And that weight, that weight of carrying all that anger and rage and all of that, I felt it lifting.

Forgiveness is hard—you have to want to do it. And I suggest to people that there is no timeline. If you don’t want to do it, just know that I’m not going to judge you for it. You are the hardest judge of yourself. That’s where we get caught up: in ourselves. And that’s the thing about Jesus: He teaches us, if we forget about ourselves and reach out to other people and show them love and kindness and mercy, then we could stop thinking about us, and we could do something good. 

My thing is embracing mercy and mending hearts. The death penalty and gun violence, it’s about mercy. Mercy. When you start to see people as people and not as the worst thing they’ve ever done in their lives, then you’re able to do for other people. And in doing for other people, you heal yourself. I’ll be speaking about this at Mother Emanuel. Yeah, I’m going to tear ’em up when I get in that church. And I know Momma going to be sitting right up there in the front row. Every time I preached in that church, it was only a couple of times, but she was right up in the front row. So I know she’ll be there. I better get it right!

When you look back to those early days of your profound grief in the wake of the shooting, what would you tell that younger version of yourself now? How have you changed over the years?
It has been a transformation for me. My life, the person that Sharon was before, the essence of Sharon, is there. All of the character, the things that I got from my moms and knowing how to survive and to be resilient and all of that, come from the long ancestry of my people. But I have transformed. When all of this first happened, I had so much anger. I felt I had to do everything: No matter who asked me to speak where, I just had to be out there. I felt like if I had stopped, then I might not have gotten up. So being busy and advocating and speaking and traveling and doing all of these things was a way of keeping me busy, because I wouldn’t have a chance to think. 

But now, after all of these 10 years, I’m tired. Yeah. I’m tired. And I don’t know, sometimes I think to myself, if I don’t talk about my moms, nobody else will. If I stop, then it’ll be like every other mass shooting; they’re just a name that pops up on social media during the anniversary. I’m tired. But also, you know what? There has been so much growth for me personally. I’m doing things that I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would be doing. I thought that I just would be a little old chaplain doing what I do. But there has been so much growth spiritually, emotionally, physically. I’m finally to the point, after almost 67 years, of taking care of me. Yes, I have learned to say no. I don’t have to prove myself to anybody anymore. 

You’ve done so much for other people in sharing your story and pushing for change, but you have to care for yourself too — it’s a good lesson in all of this.
Yes, I’m no longer that person that felt like I had to be on top of everything to feel like I was worthy. Not that you ever stop learning and understanding new things, but to totally know that after all of the challenges I have had in my life, I am totally worthy where I am. I have a voice and I have something to say — I’m not going to stand back and not say it; I’ve never been as bold as I am — but I don’t have to do it all.

You can feel proud of the work you’ve done, but finally get some rest and do what feels most important to you.
Yes, I’m doing a lot of things now because it’s the 10th anniversary, but once this is finished, I’m going to California to see a friend. I met her through my gun-violence advocacy; there were times when I was struggling, and she was always there. And that’s another thing from the past 10 years: I have met so many people, and the bulk of them have been people with good hearts — sincere hearts for social justice. Both Black and white people. I can pick up the phone and call people from all over this country. Yeah. I know that they’re there.

I am proud of the work that I have done. There’s this old song that people sing at funerals, and they better sing it at mine: “May the work I’ve done speak for me. May the life I’ve lived speak for me. When I’m down here in my grave and there’s nothing to be said, may the work I’ve done speak for me.”

This interview has been edited for clarity and length