Grace Note
This week I’m staying in a Marriott across the street from Mother Emanuel, the Charleston church where nine parishioners were killed by a white supremacist on June 17, 2015. It’s hard to look at the steps without recalling the surveillance video that was shown on repeat after the massacre: a slight figure with a distinctive bowl cut entering the church at 8:17 p.m. and exiting at 9:07. Fortunately, a related video from that time is something of a balm: President Obama singing “Amazing Grace” in the College of Charleston’s basketball arena nine days later.
My college classmate, the singer-songwriter Zoe Mulford*, was inspired by that moment to write a song of her own. If you’ve never heard it, please listen—and note the ending:
But no words could say what must be said
For all the living and the dead
So on that day and in that place
The President sang Amazing Grace
My President sang Amazing Grace
My President. For the most part, I’m taking a break from politics this weekend—it’s all about command hooks and milk crates** as we move our daughter into her freshman dorm—but I’m struck anew by that last lyric. In some ways, it’s all that any of us want, right? A president we’re proud to claim as our own.
Notes:
*You haven’t heard of Zoe? I wish she were a household name in the way that our more famous classmate Sheryl Sandberg is. Zoe is an extraordinary talent, but you don’t need to take it from me: although I still like Zoe’s rendition better, none other than Joan Baez covered this song, complete with beautiful original art by Jeff Scher:
**People buy these now.
