The killer wanted to share his thoughts, or what passed for thoughts in the mind of a

murderous white supremacist.

The 21-year-old Dylan Roof, in jail and awaiting sentencing for the 2015 fatal shootings

of nine innocents at the Emanuel A.M. Church in Charleston, South Carolina, kept a journal

that was read into the court record in early 2017.

Roof wrote,

I did what I thought would make the biggest wave, and now the fate of our race is in the hands

of my brothers who continue to live freely.

Here's how the New York Times reported the journal, seemingly unaware that he faced

the likelihood of at least a life-term in prison.

Mr. Roof wrote that he would rather live in prison knowing I took action from my race,

than live with the torture of sitting idle.

In a dizzying blitz of insults and stereotypes, predictions and perceived problems, Mr. Roof

railed against Jews, Hispanics, African Americans, Gays, and Muslims.

He said that Adolf Hitler would someday be inducted as a saint, and he warned that

unless white people take violent action, we have no future.

Such was the voice of a manifestation of the darkest of American forces.

Charleston, however, also gave us another voice, one that spoke to hate and hope and

history.

That voice belonged to Barack Obama.

We do not know whether the killer of Reverend Pickney and eight others knew all of this

history, but he surely sensed the meaning of his violent act.

...