Updated

Updated · The Washington Post · Nov 15

Charleston Opens Memorial to 9 Mother Emanuel Victims 11 Years After Church Massacre

Updated

Updated · The Washington Post · Nov 15

Charleston Opens Memorial to 9 Mother Emanuel Victims 11 Years After Church Massacre

Q: What specific design elements did the 9/11 Memorial architect include in Charleston's new Fountain of Grace to capture the victims' legacy?

Michael Arad’s design centers on a shallow marble fountain, the Fountain of Grace, with water flowing as a symbol of God’s eternal love, mercy and the congregation’s grace after the attack. Around the fountain’s rim, he inscribed the names of the nine victims so the memorial physically and symbolically keeps them at its heart. To extend that meaning, Arad added two Fellowship Benches flanking the fountain. Their curved backs were designed to feel protective and sheltering, reinforcing the ideas of community, gathering and care that he said were essential to the site. He also included a Cross of Hope, intended as a quiet place for reflection and as a sign of redemption after suffering. Arad has said the fountain itself became the memorial’s “touchstone,” shaped with help from typeface designers, stone carvers, fountain engineers and lighting designers. More broadly, he conceived the memorial as an outdoor congregational space inspired by Mother Emanuel’s history, meant not only to mourn the Emanuel Nine but to carry forward their legacy of faith, resilience, forgiveness and collective strength.

3 articles · Updated · The Washington Post · Nov 15

Hundreds gathered Saturday at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston for the opening of a new memorial honoring the nine people killed in the 2015 Bible study shooting.
The memorial, built beside the church, centers on the Fountain of Grace — a shallow basin inscribed with the victims’ names — and is meant to frame the attack within the congregation’s history of resilience, faith and forgiveness.
Chris Singleton, whose mother Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton was among those killed, told attendees he would not let the white supremacist gunman define the church and urged the crowd to embrace one another.
Polly Sheppard, one of five survivors, called the site a “living call to action,” while organizers said a separate garden honoring survivors will be added next.