Dylann Roof

Dylann Roof (born April 3, 1994, Lexington, South Carolina) killed nine Black parishioners at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina on June 17, 2015, during a Wednesday evening Bible study session. Roof had sat with the group for approximately an hour before opening fire. He was arrested the following morning in Shelby, North Carolina, after a tip from a passing motorist who recognized him from surveillance footage. He was convicted in federal court on 33 counts including hate crimes and obstruction of religion, and in state court on nine counts of murder, and was sentenced to death in both proceedings. Brenton Tarrant explicitly cited Roof's attack as an inspiration in his 2019 Christchurch manifesto, beginning the documented chain of "saint" citations that runs through Payton Gendron, Juraj Krajčík, and Nikita Casap.¹

The Charleston Attack

On June 17, 2015, Roof drove to Emanuel AME Church, one of the oldest and most historically prominent Black churches in the American South, and joined the mid-week Bible study group. After approximately an hour, he opened fire. The nine people killed were Clementa C. Pinckney (the church's senior pastor and a South Carolina state senator), Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, Depayne Middleton Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, and Myra Thompson.

Roof stated to several survivors that he intended to start a race war and that Black people "were taking over the country." He allowed some individuals to survive the shooting explicitly so they could describe what happened.

Radicalization and Manifesto

Roof described his radicalization in a manifesto he posted online in the months before the attack. He stated he had been radicalized by reading Council of Conservative Citizens material online, particularly fabricated and distorted statistics about interracial crime. His manifesto framed the attack as a necessary provocation: he believed a high-profile act of racial violence against Black people would trigger a violent white nationalist response and accelerate the collapse of multiracial American society.

The manifesto described white South Africa as a model, cited historical grievances, and explicitly invoked the concept of white victimhood that characterizes much accelerationist writing. Roof did not identify with any specific organized movement before the attack and had no prior criminal record.

Conviction and Sentencing

In federal proceedings, Roof was convicted on 33 counts including hate crimes resulting in death, obstruction of religion resulting in death, and use of a firearm to commit a violent crime. U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel sentenced him to death in January 2017. He subsequently waived his right to counsel and represented himself, continuing to deny the validity of the proceedings.

South Carolina state court convicted him on nine counts of murder. He was sentenced to death on each count.²

Accelerationist Succession

Tarrant's 2019 Christchurch manifesto stated that Roof's attack had demonstrated the possibility of a lone individual shifting the political landscape through targeted violence. By naming Roof as an inspiration, Tarrant placed him retroactively within the "saint" framework that the Christchurch attack then formalized for the global accelerationist movement. The documented chain - Roof inspires Tarrant, Tarrant inspires Gendron, Gendron named as "final nudge" by Krajčík, Krajčík's writings cited by Casap - runs directly through the Terrorgram Collective prosecution record and into the most recent cases.³