Kevin Sack is a longtime reporter who spent much of his career writing long-form pieces for the New York Time. Then in 2015, he helped cover one of the most horrific massacres in recent US history, the killing of nine parishioners who were attending Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

The story launched Sack on what would become a 10 year project to document the history of Mother Emanuel, one of the oldest and most influential black churches in America.  The book, which is out now, explores stories of the enslaved and emancipated Black people who created and sustained the church against all odds in a bastion of the confederacy. The book also grapples with eternal questions of forgiveness and resilience a decade after this terrible tragedy.