Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Kevin Sack ’77 returned to Jacksonville on June 20 for a special event at the Main Library, promoting his debut book, “Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church.”

This homecoming for the former Bolles Bugle editor featured a conversation with Isaiah Oliver, president of The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida, followed by a Q&A and book signing.

“Mother Emanuel” is a sweeping history of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina – the site of a devastating tragedy June 17, 2015, when a white supremacist killed the church’s pastor and eight worshipers during a Bible study.

Sack, who was in Charleston covering the aftermath for The New York Times, uses the book to explore not only the church’s deep historical roots as the first A.M.E. church in the South but also to tell a profound story of courage and grace amidst the fight for racial justice. Learn more the book here.

A native of Jacksonville and a graduate of Duke University, Sack spent 30 years on the staff of The New York Times, where he specialized in writing long-form narrative and investigative reports, often related to race. He also has written for the Los Angeles Times and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and his work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine. He was a 2019 Emerson Collective Fellow at New America. #BulldogProud