Grace Will Lead Us Home by Jennifer Berry Hawes
Quick Synopsis: Grace Will Lead Us Home opens with the night of the shooting at Emanuel AME in Charleston, SC. It tells of a series of devoted, church-loving people conducting church business and then deciding to stay faithful to their Wednesday night Bible Study commitment, no matter how late it had gotten. “Just 30 minutes,” they decide, and to their surprise they have a visitor. They invite him in, but during the closing prayer he begins shooting. Hawes paints a horrific scene that is careful to remind us all of the painful human cost of this event. The rest of the book explains the healing process that must take place for these families, including the shooter’s. The families are hurt time and time again by their extended family, by their church, and by the callousness of the shooter. Usually we see the direct aftermath of horrific mass shootings, but we rarely stay with those families until the trial. We don’t know their pain of moving on and finding a new way of doing life. Grace Will Lead Us Home helps us travel that journey, and reminds us that hatred and supremacy don’t just harm people for a split second and then move on, hatred and supremacy create actions and feelings that harm for years—generations—to come.
Why I Like It: It’s the summer of 2020, so it’s a volatile time in America. Moments of police brutality captured on video are forcing all of us to reckon with the problems that have plagued this country since the 1700s. What breeds white supremacy? What hasn’t changed that causes us to have the same conversations in 2020 that we had in 1960? To have these conversations, I did the one thing I know to do—read. This book explores a place near and dear to my heart—South Carolina, but it also dives deep into the lasting impact that this shooting had on the families of the Emanuel 12. It balances very delicately the relationship between the strong Christian faith of many African American Southerners and the juxtaposing reality of the still-rooted presence of white nationalism in South Carolina.
Why You Might Like It: This book is a great starting place because it is almost non-confrontational. No matter where you are in your journey with exploring race relations, this book is a graceful read. It has open arms that will allow you to explore the idea that religion and forgiveness can lead people a place where they can face the hatred of white nationalism. However, it also explores the societal context that leads people to white nationalism. Without saying it, the book helps us understand that while people like the shooter are extremely dangerous, racist laws and racist politicians are almost as equally dangerous. Berry Hawes knows that the Southern audience may not be open to terms like “white fragility” or be able to look deep into the history of slavery and its lingering impact, but they can talk about race and religion and the sacrilegiousness of someone desecrating the sanctity of religion and the sharing of faith.
Publishing Information: The copy of Grace Will Lead Us Home that I read and is pictured on this website was written by Jennifer Berry Hawes and published by St. Martin’s Press in 2019. It was copyrighted in 2019 by The Charleston Post and Courier.
