Melody Lehn is assistant professor of rhetoric and women’s and gender studies at Sewanee: The University of the South. Sean Patrick O'Rourke is professor of rhetoric and American studies at Sewanee: The University of the South.

• Introduction: Was Blind but Now I See: Rhetoric, Race, and Religion in the Charleston ShootingsSean Patrick O’RourkeMelody LehnPart I: The Killer’s Manifesto: Rhetorics of the Lost Cause and Race Warfare1“The South Shall Rise Again”: Setting the Lost Cause Myth in Future Tense in Dylann Roof’s Manifesto Margaret Franz2Charleston and the Postracial Logics of “Race War”Daniel A. GranoPart II: Gun Control: The Debates That Did Not Happen and the Language of Lynching3The Racial Politics of Gun Violence: A Brief Rhetorical HistoryCraig Rood4The Charleston Church Shooting and the Public Practice of Forgetting Lynching Samuel P. PerryPart III: Civic Eulogies and Exhortations: The Responses of Barack and Michelle Obama 5The Act of Forgiveness in Barack Obama’s Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney, Charleston, South Carolina, June 26, 2015David A. Frank6Challenging the Myth of Postracialism: Exhortation, Strategic Ambiguity, and Michelle Obama’s Respon

Rhetoric, Race, Religion, and the Charleston Shootings: Was Blind But Now I See makes vital contributions to scholarly and public understanding of the Mother Emanuel tragedy. The essays within this volume are historically-grounded, theoretically-sophisticated, and extremely relevant to our contemporary context; they provide novel frames for rethinking and for thinking more deeply about white supremacist gun violence in America. Moreover, this collection's incisive and multi-faceted engagement with the politics of memory, forgetting, and forgiveness make it an illuminating text for classroom engagement and a go-to resource for scholars' bookshelves.