The massacre at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, deeply saddened us—but also galvanized us. On the anniversary of the attack, six TT staffers remember.
When this literature teacher completes a book with her class and hears a student say, “Reading this makes me happy I am an American,” she flips the script.
Dr. Kiara Lee-Heart is a native of Richmond, Virginia. She holds a B.A. in sociology with a minor in Latin American and Iberian Studies from the University of Richmond and a master’s degree in education from the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education. She earned her Ph.D. in education at Virginia Commonwealth University and her dissertation research focused on colorism and the lived experiences of dark-skinned Black college students. She teaches first-year students writing and critical thinking skills in the Department of Focused Inquiry at Virginia Commonwealth University. Kiara
Langston Hughes, a voice of the Harlem Renaissance, writes of a black man banished to the kitchen when company arrives. This same man looks to the future, for a day when he will sit at the table to eat with company, because he, too, is an American.