Phillip Lucas, The Associated Press
Sunday, Jun. 21, 2015
Sunday, Jun. 21, 2015
Parishioners embrace as they attend the first church service on Sunday at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Church. David Goldman-Pool / Getty Images
People fill the street in front of the historic Emanuel African American Methodist Church during the Sunday morning service, four days after nine of its members were shot to death in the building. Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
CHARLESTON, S.C. — The congregation at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal swayed and sang, prayed and welcomed the world into their sanctuary on Sunday, holding the first worship service since a white gunman was accused of opening fire during a Bible study group, killing nine black church members.
Messages of love, recovery and healing were interspersed throughout the service, which no doubt reverberated throughout churches across the U.S. There was enthusiastic singing and shouting, so much so that many waved small fans in front of their faces. Bottled water was handed out.
Uniformed police officers flanked the congregation as a measure of added security, and worshippers’ cried as they prayed at the church known as “Mother Emanuel” because it is one of the oldest black congregations in the U.S. South.
“It has been tough, it’s been rough, some of us have been downright angry, but through it all God has sustained us and has encouraged us. Let us not grow weary in well-doing,” said the Rev. Norvel Goff, a presiding elder of the 7th District AME Church in South Carolina.
Goff was appointed to lead the historic Charleston church after Emanuel’s senior pastor, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, was shot and killed. Pinckney was also a state senator and married father of two children.
Goff acknowledged that Sunday was Father’s Day and reminded people that God was “this nine families’ daddy.”
“The blood of the ‘Mother Emmanuel 9’ requires us to work until not only justice in this case, but for those who are still living in the margin of life, those who are less fortunate than ourselves, that we stay on the battlefield until there is no more fight to be fought. And for that we say, ’Thank you,”’ he said.
Sunday morning marked the first service at Emanuel since Dylann Roof, 21, sat among a Bible study group and opened fire after saying that he targeted them because they were black, authorities said.
Events to show solidarity were planned throughout Charleston and beyond. At 10 a.m. EDT, church bells rang throughout downtown in this “Holy City” — which garnered the nickname because of the numerous churches here.
Later Sunday, people were expected to gather on the Arthur Ravenel Bridge to join hands in solidarity. The bridge’s namesake is a former state lawmaker and a vocal supporter of the Confederate flag flown by the pro-slavery, secessionist southern states in the 1861-65 American Civil War.
CHARLESTON, SC - JUNE 21: The Rev. Norvel Goff speaks at the first church service four days after a mass shooting that claimed the lives of nine people at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Church June 21, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina. Chruch elders decided to hold the regularly scheduled Sunday school and worship service as they continue to grieve the shooting death of nine of its members including its pastor earlier this week. David Goldman-Pool / Getty Images
Roof had been photographed with the Confederate flag several times before the shooting.
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley attended the service at Emanuel. With the church packed, people gathered outside in the blistering heat.
Despite the grim circumstances the congregation has been faced with, the welcoming spirit Roof exploited before the shooting is still alive, church members said.
Sheriff's deputies guard the entrance to the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston during Sunday services. MLADEN ANTONOV / AFP / Getty Images
Goff said reopening the doors of Emanuel so soon after the shooting “sends a message to every demon in hell and on Earth.”
For the family of Cynthia Hurd, Sunday’s service was especially poignant. Hurd, a longtime librarian, would have been celebrating her 55th birthday and was planning a trip to Virginia with her siblings.
“Sunday will not be a sad day for me; it will be a celebration for me. It will be a celebration for our family because our faith is being tested,” Hurd’s younger brother Malcolm Graham said Friday. “She was in the company of God trying to help somebody out. She was where she needed to be.”
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