The Ten Year anniversary of the Mother Emanuel AME Church Shooting
What is the color of your Heart ? We are soon to reach June 15, 2025, and the tenth anniversary of the Mother Emanuel AME Church shooting. Reflecting back, the A Backpack Journalist program had been invited to bring a few of our after school African American students for three days at Vorhees, for a college experience. Cleveland Sellers, was the President of the college at the time, and Bakari Sellers, his son and a friend to our program invited us in. Off we went, sleeping bags and all. In total there were 20 students middle to high school, and then the 4 "Backpackers", elementary school age, and I with Principal Shaw and other adults who volunteered. We all piled into a school bus and traveled to Denmark, SC, where the boys began with an assignment to a dorm room, followed by instruction on how to use the cafeteria and the waffle maker. The days that followed, the boys were on fields playing football, in the classroom taking instruction from Principal Shaw, and...