That was a moment everyone in our city will always remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when we heard what had happened. I was half-drunk in a bar and had to call my dad to pick me up; he told me on the car ride home, and I spent days feeling sick that I had been partying at the exact moment something so evil was happening 10 minutes away. My pastor is a chaplain, and was actually one of the first people allowed on the scene, so my church has always felt a very visceral connection to Mother Emanuel.

Charleston is the epicenter of all this evil, so it's going to take a LONG time to bleed it all out to a point where we can truly start anew. But that night was a wake-up moment for a lot of us. I wish I could say all of us, but... People.