Charleston church victim’s brother shares his experience in new book

Charlotte City Council member Malcolm Graham looks inward in a deeply personal new book reflecting on his sister’s murder in a mass shooting at a Charleston, South Carolina, church.

Graham’s sister Cynthia Graham Hurd was killed in the June 2015 shooting at Mother Emanuel AME 

Church. Dylann Roof, who is white, was convicted and sentenced to death for nine murders and hate crimes.

In “The Way Forward,” scheduled for release later this month and available for preorder, Graham offers an inside look at his experience navigating the aftermath of the shooting — from racing to determine his sister’s fate to internal family divisions and Roof’s trial.

The potential 2025 mayoral candidate, a Democrat who represents District 2 on the City Council and formerly served in the North Carolina Senate, also lays out a strategy for how to advance national conversations about race and violence. “I can say with both sadness and certainty that I have not moved on,” he writes. “I won’t—not yet. There’s work yet to do where I stand.” 

Grief, anger and headlines

The first two-thirds of Graham’s book weave between intense memories of the shooting, its aftermath and historical context, both for his family and his home state of South Carolina.

The narrative runs through recol- lections of heading to Mother Emanuel with his parents and siblings as a child, the moment authorities confirmed his sister’s death and the state’s history of racial violence.

Graham doesn’t sugarcoat his emo- tions — from questioning whether he passed Roof on the highway as the shooter fled to North Carolina to watching then-President Barack Obama sing “Amazing Grace” at a service for the victims.

He described that moment as “etched in my memory forever as a poignant blend of sorrow, love, and community solidarity”. He’s also candid about much of the aftermath of the shooting, including:

• Kind words for then-Republican South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and her push to remove the Confederate battle flag from the Statehouse. “I appreciated her support regardless of her motives,” he writes.
• Accusations against his brother-in-law Arthur Stephen Hurd of substance abuse problems and disputes about his sister’s will
• Comments about allegations of poor leadership and financial impropriety at Mother Emanuel in the years following the shooting. “The church’s alleged financial misdeeds and neglect of the survivors definitely didn’t help my crisis of faith,” he said.

Graham’s ‘Way Forward’

Graham’s book recalls frustration with the media and public’s focus on forgiveness in the wake of the shooting. It glossed over the unavoidable historical and political context of the racist shooting, Graham writes.

“I didn’t want to burn down the mar- ket or start a riot down King Street; I wanted to burn down the platitudes,” he writes. “I wanted to have a real conversation about what happened. I wanted an environment where we could ask tough questions and sit in that healthy tension, a place where solutions could grow into real, lasting change.”

The latter portion of the book piv- ots to what Graham calls his “way forward” — seven steps for improving conversations about violence and race.

Some are more general, such as ac- knowledging “collective grief.” Others are more specific, including support for gun regulations and hate crimes legislation.

“We just need to remember that talk doesn’t get things done,” Graham writes.