|
 In a speech likely to be considered one of the most memorable of
his presidency, Obama paid an emotional tribute to the nine people
shot to death at the church and pleaded for Americans to use the
tragedy as a way to bridge racial divide.
The shootings last week sparked an intense dialogue over the legacy
of slavery and its symbols after photos of the white man charged in
the shooting surfaced showing him posing with the Confederate flag
on a website that also displayed a racist manifesto.
Politicians and businesses quickly scrambled to distance themselves
from the Civil War-era battle flag of the Confederacy amid calls for
the flag to be lowered from the grounds of South Carolina's State
House.
Obama called the flag "a reminder of systemic oppression and racial
subjugation."
“For too long we were blind to the pain that the Confederate flag
stirred in too many of our citizens,” Obama said in his eulogy for
Reverend Clementa Pinckney, 41, of Charleston's Emanuel African
Methodist Episcopal church.
 At the end of his speech, Obama launched into a rendition of the
18th century hymn, written by a former slave trader after his
conversion to Christianity and often associated with
African-American struggles. It was a poignant scene for America's
first black president who has often been reluctant to play up his
racial heritage.
For a moment, he was alone on stage intoning the hymn before
purple-clad ministers beside him smiled, stood up and joined him.
Then a church organ kicked in and the mostly African-American crowd
of about 5,500 people added their voices.
After the hymn, Obama called out the names of the Charleston
shooting victims into the microphone. The crowd responded "Yes," to
every name. The cadence of his speech was more like that of a sermon
than an address.
Obama made frequent reference to God's grace and the failure of the
Charleston alleged killer Dylann Roof, 21, to sow bitterness, as
witnessed by the forgiveness shown by the victims' families.
"It was a powerful, powerful speech," said David Rivers, 68, a
health professor who was in the crowd. "He had a little reverend in
him too. Sounded like Reverend Obama," he added.
KILLING WAS PERSONAL
The Charleston killings touched three issues close to Obama's heart:
gun control, race and a personal connection to Pinckney, a state
senator who he met while campaigning for the White House in the 2008
campaign.
Obama's election raised hopes that the United States was moving
beyond racism but the Charleston shooting was another reminder to
him and the country that it is still a problem.
"Maybe we now realize the way racial bias can infect us even when we
don't realize it, so that we're guarding against not just racial
slurs, but we're also guarding against the subtle impulse to call
Johnny back for a job interview but not Jamal," he said on Friday.
[to top of second column] |
The Democratic president failed in 2013 in a high-profile effort to
have Congress tighten gun laws after the massacre in Newtown,
Connecticut, where 20 children and six adults were killed.
“For too long, we’ve been blind to the unique mayhem that gun
violence inflicts upon this nation," he said on Friday. “The vast
majority of Americans want to do something about this. . .We see
that now," he said.
Obama was joined in Charleston by first lady Michelle Obama and Vice
President Joe Biden for the funeral, the third one for a Charleston
shooting victim, with the rest scheduled in the coming days.
Even political opponents of Obama were moved by the event.
"I'm a staunch Republican and it brought tears to my eyes a couple
of times. I'm not ashamed to say it," said Andrew Smith, Charleston
County treasurer.
During his presidency, Obama has spoken at half a dozen memorial
services for victims of mass shootings in Texas, Arizona, Colorado
and Connecticut.
An accomplished orator, Obama has nevertheless yet to produce an
address that would rank alongside former President Ronald Reagan's
call for the Soviet Union to tear down the Berlin Wall or some of
former President John F. Kennedy's addresses, said presidential
historian Thomas Alan Schwartz.
"I don't really think of him as having a great number of speeches
like that but he's had these very effective moments at times of
national tragedy like at Charleston today," said Schwartz, of
Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
(Writing by Alistair Bell; Additional reporting by Ayesha Rascoe,
Steve Holland and Lindsay Dunsmuir in Washington; Editing by Lisa
Shumaker)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
