“Several people were killed in a shooting at a historic African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina, a source close to the investigation told CNN.
The shooter is still at large.
The shooting took place Wednesday evening at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. On its website, the church describes itself as the “oldest AME church in the south.”
“It’s really bad. It’s a very bad scene,” local pastor Thomas Dixon said.
“Apparently the person just entered the church and opened fire. That part has not been fully articulated on what happened yet … they are still looking for the suspect.” xx
tonight @ 9pm / 8 victims so far / follow deray for updates
*9 victims
The church was founded in 1816 by African American former members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, who left the church because of a dispute over burial grounds. The white churches, particularly the Methodist Episcopal Church, had increasingly discriminated against them in the prior years, and “capped the insult when they built a hearse house on the black burial ground." In 1818 a church leader, Morris Brown, left a white church in protest, and more than four thousand Black members followed him to this new church.
In 1822, Denmark Vesey, one of the church’s founders, was implicated in an alleged slave revolt plot. Vesey and five other alleged organizers were executed on July 2 after a secret trial, and the original church was burned down by white supremacists. The church was rebuilt, but in 1834 all-black churches were outlawed in Charleston, and the congregation met in secret until the end of the Civil War in 1865.
In 1962, at a church meeting, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Wyatt T. Walker of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference urged church members to register and vote. Coretta Scott King led a 1969 march of some 1,500 demonstrators to the church in support of striking hospital workers in Charleston. At the church, they faced bayonet-wielding members of the South Carolina National Guard; the church’s pastor and 900 demonstrators were arrested.
In other words this is a very historic church with a very long history of suffering violence. And most likely Reverend Pinckney was the main target. This should absolutely be considered domestic terrorism.
The Rev. Clementa Pinckney was among the nine people killed, according to CNN affiliate WCSC. The affiliate confirmed it through Elder James Johnson, the president of the Tri-County chapter of the civil rights organization, the National Action Network.
Pinckney began preaching at 13 and was appointed to his first church at 18.
In addition to being the senior pastor at Emanuel AME, Pinckney was also a state senator.
He was elected to the State Senate in 2000 at age 27, according to the church’s website. He made his statehouse debut four years earlier when he was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives.
Recently, he backed a bill to make body cameras mandatory for all police officers in South Carolina. The legislation was in response to the death of Walter Scott, an unarmed black man killed by a police officer earlier this year.