A Nobel Peace Prize for Mother Emanuel AME Church?

It may seem odd that officials and clergy in Thornton Township would inject themselves into the nominating process for the Nobel Peace Prize.

After all, while Thornton may be the largest township in Illinois, you don’t usually associate elected officials from the south suburbs with such lofty campaigns.

But that changed dramatically this summer when a young white man walked into Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal, the oldest AME church in the South, and gunned down nine worshippers, including the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who was also a South Carolina state legislator.

“We expected to see on the news that night, burnings and protests and clashes with the police, but we didn’t see anything like that,” said Frank M. Zuccarelli, the longtime township supervisor.

“We were all brought up to believe an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, so we assumed something terrible would happen. When we didn’t see that we were very, very surprised and very moved.”

Last month, Zuccarelli and Illinois State Sen. Donne Trotter led a delegation of clergy and elected officials to Charleston, South Carolina, and announced they would spearhead an effort to nominate Emanuel AME Church for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Initially, the group intended to nominate the entire city of Charleston. But after visiting the church known as “Mother Emanuel,” Zuccarelli said the group decided to focus on the church.

“They truly deserve the Nobel Peace Price. They were the main reason for the response to this horrific crime being love and forgiveness. No one has done more to promote peace at a time when it would have been the most difficult,” Zuccarelli said.

On Wednesday, several aldermen, including Leslie Hairston (5th), Michelle Harris (8th) and Howard Brookins (21st), joined Zuccarelli, Trotter and local clergy for a press conference at Chicago City Hall to publicly announce the nomination.

The group hopes at least 1 million people sign the online petition at nobelpeaceprizeforcharleston.com.

I spoke to the Rev. Norvel Goff, the interim pastor at Emanuel AME, about the nomination by phone on Wednesday afternoon.

“It is embraced by all of us who are here in Mother Emanuel, but not only Mother Emanuel, but this community called Charleston and this state called South Carolina,” Goff told me.

“We came together with the understanding of forgiveness. This is embraced as an acknowledgment that we do better together. Our faith is stronger than fear, and love always overcomes hate,” he said.

The cold-blooded killing of nine black people in a church by an avowed racist most certainly could have sparked riots, especially since so many young people were already engaged in angry protests over the controversial shootings of young black men by white police officers.

But the people of Charleston chose to show the rest of us the power of nonviolence

Within days of the mass shooting, South Carolina’s governor, Nikki Haley, took steps to retire the Confederate flag— seen by many blacks as a racially divisive symbol— from the state Capitol grounds.

In recent years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded the coveted prize to organizations and entities that are credited with peaceful struggle against violent oppression around the world.

A Nobel Peace Prize for Mother Emanuel AME Church may not be such a long shot after all.