The news that nine people had been murdered in a racist attack at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, was felt deeply in communities around the country. At Austin Seminary, the grief and horror brought on by the killings became particularly acute when the Seminary community learned that one of its own, alumna Sharon Risher (MDiv ’07), had lost two cousins and her mother, Ethel W. Lance, in the attack.
It was in the loving memory of Lance that the First Presbyterian Church in Cuero, Texas, gave a gift establishing the Ethel W. Lance Human and Civil Rights Award at Austin Seminary. The award will be given annually to a graduating senior who, during her or his time at Austin Seminary, demonstrates outstanding contributions to human or civil rights. The recipient of the award will be chosen by a committee composed of the Seminary president, academic dean, and vice president for Student Affairs and Vocation, based on written nominations. The award will be announced each year at Commencement and carries a cash prize.
Lance, 70, was a faithful member and long-time custodian at Emanuel AME, one of the nation’s largest black churches and an important site in the ongoing history of civil rights activism. She also worked for nearly thirty-five years at Charleston’s Gaillard Municipal Auditorium. According to family and friends, one of the joys in Lance’s life was gospel music, and she loved to get dressed up and take her family to hear performances at the auditorium where she worked. She is survived by her children: the Rev. Sharon W. Risher, Gary L. Washington, Esther M. Lance, and Nadine Collier, and a host of grandchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins, and friends.
Risher serves as a trauma chaplain at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Texas. Since the attack in June, she has been an activist and national spokesperson with the grassroots anti-gun violence group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. She will be the guest preacher at Austin Seminary’s Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Service on February 11, 2016, in Shelton Chapel at 11:10 a.m.