A church reopens, a city mourns,
Crowds attend services where 9 were slain.
— This CHARLESTON, S.C. city, famous for its many houses of worship, awoke Sunday with a collective plan to mourn and pray for the nine black churchgoers killed here in what authorities said was a racist attack by a white gunman.
Worship normally contained within church walls spilled into the streets. On Marion Square, a grassy area a block from the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the site of Wednesday’s massacre, large banners hung from the buildings.
“With Love to Our Emanuel Neighbors,” read one.
“Holy City ... . Let Us Be the Example of Love That Conquers Evil,” read another.
A diverse gathering of mourners crowded beneath Emanuel’s vaulted roof Sunday morning for the first service there since the shooting.
The crowd included Gov. Nikki Haley and the conservative presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, who sat toward the back of the sanctuary next to DeRay McKesson, a liberal activist.
The service opened with an emotional hymn as nearly the entire congregation stood and sang “You are the source of my strength, you are the strength of my life,” rounded out with a big “Amen” that was followed by a standing ovation.
In the opening prayer, one of the ministers said that while people were still asking why the tragedy occurred, “Those of us who know Jesus, we can look through the window of our faith and we see hope, we see light.”
The family of Dylann Roof, who is charged in the shootings, attended an early service Sunday at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in downtown Columbia, S.C.
“They are shattered,” Bishop Herman Yoos told the congregation at a later service. “But their faith is strong.”
Several congregants of St. Paul’s were friends with both the Roof family and with Clementa C. Pinckney, the pastor of Emanuel, who died in the shooting, Pastor Tony Metze said.
“One of Mr. Pinckney’s friends called Joe Roof — Dylann’s grandfather — and said, ‘I just want to say three words: ‘I love you,’” Metze recounted. “That’s the church.”
In front of Emanuel, throngs of journalists and well-wishers milled about, yet the atmosphere was one of solemnity.
Flowers, cards and banners continued to pile up in front, some of them pointedly political.
“Ms. Haley, Tear Down That Flag!” one hand-lettered sign proclaimed, a reference to the Confederate flag that flies in front of the state Capitol in Columbia.
Brandy Comer, 42, of nearby Mt. Pleasant and her husband Blake Comer, 47, who are white, walked toward Emanuel, dressed casually for the searing heat. Brandy Comer carried a bright clutch of tulips to add to the pile.
Comer said she was deeply moved by the families of the victims who, in forgiving the suspect, had served as the highest of exemplars of the New Testament command to love your enemy. She wondered if she would have been able to do the same if her family had been harmed.
“We have kids,” she said. “And I don’t know If I could have gone in that direction.”
At 10 a.m., church bells began to toll. Nine minutes passed, one minute for each victim.
Hundreds of people, most of them white, had gathered in Marion Square by that time, all of them in silence except for the chattering of some children.
Next door to Emanuel, the white congregants of Citadel Square Baptist Church gathered for their Sunday worship service. The church program listed the names of the nine victims.
It also invited each churchgoer to walk, at the end of the service, to the church next door to place a flower on the steps of Emanuel as a sign of love and support.