Black Excellence: Marcus Amaker
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2025/06/17/poet-laureate-charleston-church-shooting
Ten years after a white supremacist killed nine parishioners of Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, the community is still coping with the loss and navigating the impact of the racial attack.
Marcus Amaker, the first poet laureate of Charleston, South Carolina, said many Black residents of South Carolina became afraid to go to church, a fear that lingers to this day.
“Going to church, especially for people in the south, especially for Black people in the south, has always been a safe haven,” Amaker said. “So for that to be sort of laced and infused with anxiety is a really hard thing for a lot of people to deal with, and I don’t really feel like a lot of us talk about it that much.”