“Today is one of those days that even though it’s sad, we are rejoicing to see the world looking at South Carolina, and we’re so blessed to have our own president, President Obama, to come and deliver the eulogy to one that has fallen from the clergy”.
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Adding his voice to the movement was College of Charleston president Glenn McConnell, a ex- Republican lieutenant governor and avid Civil War battle re-enactor.
Hurd’s brother, Malcolm Graham, a ex- North Carolina state senator, said of his sister last week, “It is unimaginable that she would walk into church and not return”.
First lady Michelle Obama, along with Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, will join the president at the funeral at the College of Charleston.
“For many – black and white – that flag was a reminder of systemic oppression and racial subjugation”.
The trip had been planned before nine African-American women and men were gunned down during Bible study on June 17. The flag has always represented more than just ancestral pride.
Georgia Democrats are calling for an end to state holidays commemorating Confederate history, joining a push across the country to remove the battle flag and other symbols from government buildings after nine African-Americans were fatally shot at a church in Charleston, South Carolina.
Wells Fargo announced a $100,000 grant to the Palmetto Project Thursday to support their Lowcountry Ministries – Reverend Pinckney Fund. The fund’s goal is to support the victims, their families and programmatic ministries.
If we are honest, this attack is part of a larger story about the state of our culture – a culture in which white supremacist groups thrive, racism infects many institutions (including law enforcement) and indifference to injustice helps keep millions of people trapped in an endless cycle of poverty.
Pinckney’s funeral will be another wrenching but cathartic occasion to say goodbye to the victims killed at the church last week.
“It is a powerful testimony that they are able to come”, Goff said of Thompson’s relatives, who were applauded by others in the audience. There are good people on both sides of these debates.
“He pleaded with Americans not “to go back to business as usual. I think people are looking for healing””. The arena burst into song alongside him. Clementa Pinckney and his fellow churchgoers.
Services for the other victims are scheduled throughout the weekend and into next week.
The president said he did not know Pinckney well, but he did a little. “In the pulpit by 13, pastor by 18, public servant by 23”.
She’s called South Carolina legislature back into session to make the decision whether or not to officially take down the flag. President Barack Obama will deliver the eulogy at Pinckney’s funeral Friday at a nearby college arena.
Hundreds of people began lining up in a queue that stretched at least four blocks from the arena.
In the blazing heat, mourners huddled under umbrellas and relied on bottles of water handed out among the crowd.
“When it comes to the pursuit of justice, we can afford neither complacency nor despair”, Obama said March 7 in Selma. “But this is overwhelming”.
“Various churches of different denominations held prayer services”. Survivors said that as the gunman opened fire, Sanders tried to talk him out of his attack-then jumped in front of Jackson to shield her from the bullets with his body. The church has taken a closer look at keeping multiple doors locked and when to lock them. Pinckney was pastor of the church and also a state senator. It was the same officer who had arrested Roof a month earlier at a Columbia mall on a misdemeanor charge of possessing the drug Suboxone, a narcotic used to wean people from opiate addiction, the police report said.
“Someone should have told the young man”, Bryant said. “He was the embodiment of the sermon”.
Only one speaker referred directly to Roof, albeit without using his name. “The world needs that message, and it’s coming right from you and from this community”, Riley told the beyond capacity crowd.
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“Someone should have told the young man. He wanted to start a race war”.
