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The following is an op-ed by Congresswoman Chellie Pingree

For the last few years, I’ve had the chance to visit important sites of the civil rights movement with one of its leaders, my colleague Congressman John Lewis. One of the most impactful stops was the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. 

After hearing a sermon in the church, we went down the narrow steps to a place many of us can relate to from childhood—the Sunday School room in the basement. It was there in 1963 that four black girls were brutally killed with a bomb planted by white supremacists. 

As a country, we would like to think that this kind of horrific event—and the racism and hate that led to it—is far behind us. But, sadly, that is not the case, as shown by the terrible killing of nine African-Americans at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The young white man who shot them had espoused hatred for blacks online before the attack.

The parishioners there for Bible study that Wednesday night welcomed the stranger in with open arms and showed nothing but kindness and warmth in the hour he sat with them. But his hatred was such that he still rose to shoot them.

By all accounts, the victims were wonderful people of faith and community. Their loss is unspeakably awful. Now is a time to stand in sympathy and mourning with their families and their community. 

And, yes, it is also time to question where society failed them. 

The gunman did not act in a vacuum. According to his writings, his white-supremacist views were taken from the Council of Conservative Citizens. The group recently said the shooter had “legitimate grievances,” including his view that inferior black people were taking over the country. 

The organization’s ideas are on the fringe, but their influence is not. They routinely donate to conservative political candidates—even some for President—who have willingly taken their money. The fact that this organization has the ear of some of the most powerful people in the country is deeply disturbing. 

There are many other ways we can see that racism is still pervasive in our society. We see it in the economic segregation and lack of opportunity that keeps many African-Americans from escaping poverty. We’ve seen it pervert our justice system, as evidenced with the recent killings of unarmed black men (and one child) by the hands of police in Ferguson, New York, Baltimore, Cleveland, and North Charleston. We see it every time someone shares a racist joke or comment about President Obama. 

Racism takes many forms, from individual actions to the laws made in our State House. Right here in our state, there are those who vilify refugees and asylum-seekers—fleeing violence and persecution in their countries—in an effort to deny them assistance in their struggle to build new lives in Maine.

These folks have come to Maine because they think it is a safe place to raise their kids and participate in the community. They should be welcomed and supported. Instead, they are blamed for fiscal problems they didn’t cause while being called “illegals” (though they are here legally) and “aliens”—code words used to convey that they are somehow less than people.   

As President Obama said recently, the legacy of racism, slavery, and Jim Crow discrimination continues to “cast a long shadow” in the country. In the wake of its latest violent manifestation, the question is where do we go from here. In the 1960s, the bombing in Birmingham compelled many in the country to give a hard look at racism for the first time and realize that something had to be done. The political shift enabled the passage of powerful laws like the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. 

Now, 50 years later, it’s time to face the issue head on again.  

Adapted from a speech Congresswoman Pingree recently gave to a Portland crowd of 1,300 assembled to show solidarity with the people of Charleston.