Editor’s Note: On June 17, 2015, at 9:05 p.m., a young man with a handgun opened fire on a prayer meeting at the Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Charleston, South Carolina, killing nine members of the congregation. The captured shooter, twenty-one-year-old Dylan Roof, a white supremacist, was charged with their murders. Two…

Bernard Edward Powers Jr. Ph.D.
Bernard E. Powers Jr., PhD, is professor of history at the College of Charleston, where he teaches United States and African American history. He has been a consultant to historic sites and has served on the boards of several history oriented nonprofit organizations. Dr. Powers has been seen in PBS films, such as The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross and Slavery and the Making of America.