As someone who has frequently visited Charleston, I am devastated by the killings at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Any mass shooting brings revulsion and anger, but the people killed Wednesday night, particularly the pastor of this church, represent the best of Charleston.  They were people who, through their church and its history, helped lead the city, and by extension our nation, away from racism and toward a better future for everyone, black and white. These are losses that cannot be made up. These are people who cannot be replaced.  It looks to be a random hate crime, and whether that turns out to be the case or not, it is still a tragedy. We should wait, however, before making judgments until more facts come to light.  The church where these shootings took place was burned to the ground in the pre-Civil War era and then met in secret for years because of white hostility toward it and black-oriented churches in general. Many major civil rights leaders of the 20th and 21st centuries have spoken there, including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It stands as a symbol of survival through the long period when racism was not merely tolerated, but also part of official government policy.  I am Southern, I am white, I am Republican, I am conservative and I am heartbroken. That someone would do this is beyond my comprehension. I do not pretend to understand why a young man would walk into a place of worship and commit this horrible crime; I only know that there is an uncontrolled evil in the hearts of some men.  The police have caught the young man believed to be the shooter, but I don’t expect that the suspect will provide rational answers that will comfort anyone or fully explain the murders. There is no punishment, no judicial process, no retribution that will bring back the dead, or that will assuage the broken hearts of the survivors. I can only say to the survivors and members of their church and community that your fellow Americans — black and white — grieve with you and mourn your loss.  When a white gunman shoots nine people dead in a black church in South Carolina, this is a “hate crime.” When two Muslim gunmen open fire at an exhibition of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in Texas, this is “terrorism.” Why isn’t the attack on the A.M.E. Church in Charleston not labeled “terrorism” and the assault on the cartoon exhibition a “hate crime”?  Is “terrorism” restricted to attacks whose intended victims are largely straight white people? The label “terrorism” is intended to make us all afraid. “Hate crimes” instill fear mainly in minorities — African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Muslims, L.G.B.T.Q.  Why can’t we own up to the fact that hate crimes are just another form of terrorism, perhaps the worst, since they target the weak among us?  Of the many fathomless dimensions to this unspeakable crime, one haunts me most: If the suspect’s race and age provoked private misgivings among Emanuel A.M.E. Church parishioners, they nonetheless welcomed him to their Wednesday night prayer meeting, thus choosing in their last minutes to live with a grace and purity of heart that few among us can hope to touch.  A version of this letter appears in print on June 19, 2015, on page A22 of the National edition with the headline: Killings at a Black Charleston Church. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
Readers express their horror and grief at what appears to be a racially motivated attack on a black church.