Journalist Kevin Sack on the Legacy of Mother Emanuel
On this episode of That Said with Michael Zeldin, Michael sits down with Kevin Sack, the acclaimed journalist and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, to discuss his powerful new book, Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church.
Sack’s work is an epic chronicle of perseverance—telling the story not only of the Mother Emanuel congregation in Charleston, South Carolina, in the wake of the horrific 2015 mass shooting, but also of a community that, over two centuries, endured enslavement, Jim Crow, and repeated acts of violence with an unshakable faith.
With more than four decades covering national affairs, Sack brings both historical depth and journalistic precision to this narrative. He spent 30 years at The New York Times as a senior writer, following distinguished reporting stints at the Los Angeles Times and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In Mother Emanuel, he weaves together the intimate and the historic, offering a profound exploration of race, resilience, and the enduring power of forgiveness in America.
