Impact Detroit Magazine Impact Detroit Magazine Summer Issue 2015 | Page 4

ETHEL LANCE
DAVID GOLDMAN/AP

Ethel Lance, 70, was a Charleston native who had been a member of the church for
most of her life. She retired after working for more than 30 years on the
housekeeping staff at the city’s Gaillard Auditorium. She had served as a sexton at
the church for the last five years, helping to keep the historic building clean. She
was also a lover of gospel music. ‘‘She was a God-fearing woman,’’ said
granddaughter Najee Washington, 23, who lived with Lance. ‘‘She was the heart of
the family, and she still is. She is a very caring, giving and loving woman. She was
beautiful inside and out.’’Lance had five children, seven grandchildren and four
great-grandchildren.
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SUSIE JACKSON
DAVID GOLDMAN/AP

Susie Jackson, 87, was a longtime church member and sang in the choir. She and
Ethel Lance were cousins. Jackson had recently visited her son and grandchildren in
Cleveland, Ohio. Tim Jackson told Cleveland television station WEWS that his
grandmother was a loving, giving woman with a great smile. ‘It’s just hard to
process that my grandmother had to leave Earth this way,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s real, real
hard. It’s challenging because I don’t believe she deserved to go this way.’’
Susie Jackson, who was fond of playing slot machines, was scheduled to go on a
church-sponsored bus trip to Chicago on Sunday and was looking forward to going
to the top of the Willis Tower, said Jean Jackson, an associate member of the church.
Susie Jackson’s niece, Cynthia Taylor, told The Associated Press that she spoke with
one of the women who survived the shooting at the church, whom she identified as
Felecia Sanders. She said Sanders told her that she lay on top of her granddaughter
and played dead while the shooter was still there.
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CYNTHIA HURD
ADAM FERRELL/THE POST AND COURIER VIA AP/FILE 2003

Cynthia Hurd’s brother took some comfort in knowing that his sister died in the
church she grew up in and loved. Hurd, 54, was the manager of one of the
busiest branches of the Charleston County library system. In her honor, the
system closed all 16 of its branches Thursday, the day after her death.She grew
up in Charleston, and her mother made sure they went Emanuel AME Church on
Sundays, Wednesdays and any other time it was open, said her brother Malcolm
Graham, a former state senator from North Carolina. ‘‘I wasn’t surprised on a
Wednesday night she was there,’’ Graham said Thursday.

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Hurd’s husband is a merchant sailor currently at sea near Saudi Arabia. Graham
was trying to help him get home. When Graham spoke to his sister last weekend,
she said she couldn’t wait for her 55th birthday on Sunday, he said. She was also
looking toward retirement after 31 years of library work. The library issued a
statement remembering Hurd as ‘‘a tireless servant of the community who spent
her life helping residents, making sure they had every opportunity for an
education and personal growth.’’
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