CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) — Nadine Lance Collier, the daughter of Ethel Lance, who, in the days after the 2015 massacre at Emanuel AME Church, offered forgiveness to her mother’s killer, has died. She was 58.
“I forgive you,” she said. “You took something really precious away from me. I will never talk to her ever again. I will never be able to hold her again. But I forgive you and have mercy on your soul. It hurts me, it hurts a lot of people but God forgives you and I forgive you.”
Collier’s actions that day, offering up forgiveness in the face of a racially motivated shooting that killed Lance and eight others, grew into a defining moment of that year in Charleston and around the country. Those same words would also land her among Glamour magazine’s Women of the Year awards, where she was named one of “The Peacemakers.”…