Public eulogies for private lives: Barack Obama on Rev. Clementa Pinckney

What is it about a certain death that causes a President to halt his agenda and take the pulpit?

Senior Pastor, Rev. Clementa Pinckney, speaks to those gathered during the Watch Night service at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina on December 31, 2012.  Photo courtesy of REUTERS/Randall Hill
Senior Pastor, Rev. Clementa Pinckney, speaks to those gathered during the Watch Night service at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina on December 31, 2012.  Photo courtesy of REUTERS/Randall Hill

Senior Pastor, Rev. Clementa Pinckney, speaks to those gathered during the Watch Night service at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina on December 31, 2012. Photo courtesy of REUTERS/Randall Hill

Barack Obama will fly to Charleston tomorrow to deliver the eulogy for Rev. Clementa Pinckney, the senior pastor of Emmanuel A.M.E. Church and one of the nine victims killed in the shooting there last week. The funeral will take place at the TD Arena at the College of Charleston, a venue that seats 5,100 people. They need somewhere big to contain the grief.

A week and a day ago, Pinckney was alive. His two daughters had a father; his wife had a husband; Emmanuel A.M.E. had a leader. Now that he is dead, people will gather to do what they have done for millennia: to remember, to mourn, to say goodbye.


Did you know you can give a eulogy for someone who is still alive? The word is now primarily associated with speeches about someone’s good qualities at their funeral, but it technically means “high praise.” We don’t do this nearly enough for each other in life, but we do it well enough in death.

One of the highest forms of high praise comes from the person delivering the eulogy. It isn’t uncommon for presidents to eulogize their family or friends, or otherwise distinguished citizens, of whom Pinckney was certainly one. He was the youngest African-American to be elected to state legislature in South Carolina; he started preaching when he was just thirteen years old. He supported LGBT rights and was one of several South Carolina pastors who held rallies for Walter Scott after he was shot in the back and killed by a police officer. He was someone who made his corner of South Carolina a better place to be.

What makes a death so important that a president will halt his agenda to take the pulpit?

Comfort, for one. Presidents have often been called on at times of tragedy to take on the role of “comforter-in-chief,” and Pinckney’s death is both a personal loss and a communal one. Obama offered comfort to Vice President Biden’s family not even a month ago when he eulogized their son, Beau:

“If you’re loud enough or controversial enough, you can get some attention.  But to make that name mean something, to have it associated with dignity and integrity –- that is rare.  There’s no shortcut to get it.  It’s not something you can buy.  But if you do right by your children, maybe you can pass it on.  And what greater inheritance is there?”

Presidents also eulogize as a way to inspire people who are in need of inspiration. Bill Clinton did this in his address to families of those killed in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1994:

“Let us let our own children know that we will stand against the forces of fear.When there is talk of hatred, let us stand up and talk against it.When there is talk of violence, let us stand up and talk against it.In the face of death, let us honor life. As St. Paul admonished us, Let us ‘not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.'”

Eulogies can offer unity after an event meant to divide people. President Bush (the second) issued a defiant appeal to national unity in his speech on the evening of September 11th, 2001:


“Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve. America was targeted for attack because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining.”

A eulogy for a public figure stands at this strange intersection of public and private, though. There are very specific, concrete ways that Pinckney will be missed by his wife, by his daughters, by his coworkers at Emmanuel A.M.E. and in the state senate. They will miss him at meals and meetings, they will feel his absence acutely. The American public will not know their grief, because it is unique to them.

But we do know the grief of living in a country divided and made violent by racism. We know, to varying degrees, the seemingly endless trauma of another shooting, another episode of police violence, another unanswered call for justice. We know that our history is both bright and horrifying, and we need a way forward, and we need someone to tell us the truth.

Barack Obama isn’t an oracle, not more than any president has ever been. But he has the opportunity to speak into a painful and dark day in our nation’s history, and to offer some solace to the family and friends of a good man who is now dead. I’m looking forward to hearing what he has to say.

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