Charleston church to reopen Sunday; mourners gather

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Emanuel AME Church, closed since a white gunman killed nine parishioners on Wednesday, is planning to reopen on Sunday for prayer.

"People want to show their support and you've got to get there early," said Kay Hightower, 50, of Columbia, S.C., whose great-grandfather was a minister at Emanuel.

"My great-grandfather's tomb is in that church. That church is a symbol. That's why it was attacked," she said. "We shall not be moved. [The gunman] broke our hearts and crushed us. But you get up and go to church."

Hightower said she expects crowds, police cordons, and limited parking. Services normally start at 9:30 a.m., but nothing is normal after the shooting, which killed the church's staff of ministers.

"The minister usually opens, does the readings - I don't know who will be doing those things now. Lay people can do them. We're just in such virgin territory," she said.

News of the reopening spread through the city as hundreds visited the downtown church grounds to mourn and express their solidarity.

Two sisters clutched each other and a bouquet of flowers as they stood before the church. They were old enough to remember when people of color could not use public bathrooms downtown, and they recalled how they marched and carried signs supporting African American civil rights as part of the church community that continued to mourn its dead on Saturday.

"It's just unfortunate that we have some evil people in the world. Especially in a church," Cynthia Wright-Murphy of Hughesville, Md., said of the attack Wednesday night in which nine black churchgoers were killed. "I can't put my arms around a person who would do that."

Her sister nodded and repeated the same theme sounded by many in the black community, including relatives of those slain.

"We are going to forgive him because that's what God wants us to do," Carolyn Wright-Porcher of Charleston said of Dylann Roof, the man arrested and charged with the killings, allegedly carried out to begin a race war. "That's a way of saying to the young man that he's not going to win. If he's trying to start a race war, we're going to show more love."

Georgette Sanders of McClellanville, S.C., a basket weaver at the local market, arrived with her husband Allen, carrying another bucket of blooms.

"It's like our mother church," she said. "All you can do is pray. You can't have hate and love together in the same heart."

Roof, who court documents say shouted racist comments during the shooting, has been charged with nine counts of murder in a hate-crime investigation in this Southern city where race relations has been an issue for centuries.

Felecia Sanders survived the attack on the Bible study group by pretending to be dead, but lost her son Tywanza. During Roof's bond hearing Friday, she came face to face, via video link, with the alleged shooter, who is said to have spent an hour with the group before opening fire.

"We welcomed you Wednesday night in our Bible study with open arms," Sanders told Roof, whose hands were handcuffed behind his back. "You have killed some of the most beautiful people that I know. Every fiber in my body hurts.

"As we said in Bible study, we enjoyed you, but may God have mercy on you."

Hours after the bond hearing, thousands of people filled a basketball arena for a community vigil for the victims. The more than 4,000 in Charleston, white and black, young and old, mourned together. Many seats were filled by preachers from a variety of faiths and city, county and state officials who called on the community to recognize that death had brought the community together, not ripped it apart.

"If that man thought he could divide this city or this country with his racial hatred, we are here today to say he miserably failed," said Charleston mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr.

"Our diversity is not a weakness, it is a strength," he said, as the predominantly white audience applauded vociferously.

But still there was an undertone of political division, as the mayor and other speakers reiterated longstanding pleas for the state to remove the Confederate battle flag from the state Capitol and for the country to pass laws to restrict the use of guns.

"We can't just forget about this. There has got to be a better way. We do not want to live in a country where we need a security guard in a Bible center," Riley said.

Republican state representative Rep. Doug Brannon said that in December, he will introduce a bill to move the flag and pole to the state's Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum.

December is the first opportunity for bills to be pre-filed for the legislative session that resumes in January.

The church was awash is a sea of flowers Saturday, drawing scores of mourners.

"Our hearts are breaking and our tears are flowing with you all," said one message from Boston posted at the church.