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 Reverend Clementa Pinckney, a widely admired state senator and
pastor of Charleston's Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church,
was among the nine people who died when a gunman opened fire during
Bible study.
The massacre has sparked an intense dialogue across the southern
United States over the legacy of slavery and its symbols, centering
on the Civil War-era battle flag of the Confederacy.
Addressing the shooting last week, Obama said it raised questions
"about a dark part of our history."
Nicknamed "Mother Emanuel," the Gothic Revival-style house of
worship is the oldest A.M.E. church in the southeastern United
States, and was founded by slaves.
In an unusual step, Obama will be accompanied by both First Lady
Michele Obama and Vice President Joe Biden for the funeral in a
Charleston college arena. All three knew Pinckney personally.
During his presidency, Obama has spoken at half a dozen memorial
services for victims of mass shootings in Texas, Arizona, Colorado
and Connecticut.
 "I’ve had to make statements like this too many times," a visibly
upset Obama said from the White House last week. "Communities like
this have had to endure tragedies like this too many times."
Obama repeated previous calls he has made for tougher gun laws, a
politically thorny issue in the United States where the constitution
guarantees the right to own guns.
"At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact
that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced
countries. It doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of
frequency," he said.
Married with two children, Pinckney was a talented orator with a
baritone voice and began preaching at 13. A Democrat, at 23 he
became the youngest African-American in South Carolina history to be
elected to the state legislature.
Several thousand turned out on Thursday evening for Pinckney's wake
at Emanuel, the line of mourners stretching for three blocks,
including 200 college fraternity brothers, friends, politicians and
members of the public, both black and white.
"I cried when I got here," said Katharine Moseley, a Texas bus
driver who drove 20 hours from Austin. "I was raised in the A.M.E.
church."
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Lutheran bishop Mike Rhyne also drove down with his wife and three
children from central Pennsylvania to pay tribute to his friend and
fellow seminary student. "He was one of the best men I have ever
met," he said.
Pinckney's high school friends Kevin Riley, 41, and Lachandra
Colbert, 42, traveled from Maryland for the funeral. "We wouldn't
miss this. He was our classmate," said Riley. "He was on track to be
someone really important," Riley added.
Mourners universally echoed the words of forgiveness by relatives of
their slain churchgoers for the white man, Dylann Roof, accused of
the murders.
"We are not the ones to judge, we leave that to God," said Maxine
Frasier Riley, 65, a retired school guidance counselor.
The Department of Justice has opened a hate crime investigation into
the shooting.
Roof posed with the Confederate flag in photos posted online and
allegedly made racist remarks to his victims as he opened fire.
In the aftermath of the slayings, South Carolina Governor Nikki
Haley and other Republicans have called for the flag's removal from
the State House grounds, saying it is divisive.
The controversy has spread across the country, with politicians
adding to voices clamoring for the removal of Confederate symbols
and names, and major retailers removing merchandise with Confederate
images from stores and websites.
(Additonal reporting by Roberta Rampton in Washington and Harriet
McLeod in Charleston; Editing by Nick Macfie)
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