A Site of Reckoning: (A)historical Meditations on Faith, Practice, and Place at Mother Emanuel AME Church

Join us for a panel and reception for an exhibit of works by Duke MFA | EDA student Jon-Sesrie Goff.

Since its origin in 1791 as the southern outpost of Philadelphia's African Methodist Episcopal movement, Mother Emanuel AME Church has been a site of religious, political, and cultural significance. From the revolt planned by church leader Denmark Vesey and the subsequent burning of the original church in 1822 to the church's 30 years of underground operation when black religious meetings were outlawed in South Carolina from 1834 - 1865 to its role during the civil rights movement of the 20th century to the recent massacre of the Emanuel 9 in 2015, the church continues to be a faith home for its parishioners and a site of broader reckoning with what the American South was and is. This exhibit explores the tensions between faith and politics, pastoral care and national healing, and the dynamics of collective memory across communities, polities, and time. Goff, a South Carolina native and African-American, has a personal connection to the massacre at Emanuel AME: his father Norvel Goff Sr., became the interim pastor of the church immediately following Rev. Clementa Pinckney's murder. (He was not in the church when the shooting occurred).