After Five Days Of Mourning, Charleston Church Reopens For Services

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines, U.S./Canada, World News Sunday, June 21st, 2015

Five days after last Wednesday deadly shooting attack by the young Dylann Roof, in which nine people were killed, the African-American church in the South Carolina, Sunday was reopened and worshipers in their hundreds, trooped in for weekend services.

Amid tight security, services began at 09:30 (13:30 GMT), with a black cloth being displayed on one of the victims, Rev. Clementa Pinckney’s chair.

On Saturday, a group from another Church, the Emanuel AME, met again in the room where their friends died, the fateful Wednesday.

One of the participants, Harold Washington, informed that the church’s doors would be opened to all.

“It’s a church of the Lord – you don’t turn nobody down” Washington reiterated.

He also disclosed that the cleaners had to cut bullet holes out of the walls so that members of the congregation would not see them on Sunday, when they arrive for worshiping.

It was also resolved during the meeting that bells at over a dozen churches would ring simultaneously throughout the state of South Carolina as a sign of solidarity.

Worshipers who survived the tragedy narrated that the suspect spent close to an hour in an evening bible study group last Wednesday before he opened fire.

In the meantime, the Police are investigating an online post, suspected to be from Roof and seemed to prompt the attack.