'Amazing speech, O'
‘Grace’ at Charleston funeral
CHARLESTON, SC — In an emotional eulogy for the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, President Obama on Friday brought nearly 6,000 worshippers to their feet by leading a chorus of “Amazing Grace” while calling for racial healing to honor the nine victims of the church massacre here last week.
One of the first moves in that direction, the president said, would be the removal of the Confederate flag from state houses that serves as a reminder “of systemic oppression and racial subjugation.”
“By taking down that flag, we express God’s grace,” Obama told a crowd of 5,960 at the College of Charleston TD Arena.
“But I don’t think God wants us to stop there.”
In a rousing speech, Obama pointed to past injustices as shaping present disparities in poverty, schools, voting rights and the criminal justice system.
Obama drew his biggest applause when he added that “racial bias can infect us even when we don’t realize it,” such as “the subtle impulse to call Johnny back for a job interview but not Jamal.”
Pinckney, a 41yearold pastor and state senator, was among the victims killed by a hatespewing gunman at the renowned Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Obama again called for gun control in spiritual terms by acknowledging the losses from massacres in Sandy Hook and a Colorado movie theater.
“By making the moral choice to change, we express God’s grace,” he said.
The 38minute speech of ten sounded like a sermon.
The president wove in Scripture, recalled the painful past of slavery — the nation’s “original sin” — and marveled at the storied role black churches hhave played as a sanctuary.
Obama said he didn’t kknow if the white gunman, Dylann Roof, knew that history when he went on his rampage and tried to “deepen divisions.”
“Oh, but God works in mysterious ways!” Obama thundered — his voice coming to a preacherlike crescendo. “God has different ideas!”
Instead of a race war, Roof sparked an outpouring of unity.
Obama’s speech brought the audience to its feet repeatedly, most pointedly at the finale, when he paused to silence the room and began to sing, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound.”
The choir joined in, then the musicians and entire arena. Obama proceeded to call out the names of each victim, saying they “found that grace.”