Funerals go on for slain churchgoers; flag incident occurs
Associated Press
CHARLESTON, S.C.
Speaking at the funerals for three of the victims of a deadly attack on a historic African-American church in South Carolina, eulogizists said Saturday that the lives lost had become a catalyst for change.
The services were for Cynthia Hurd, Tywanza Sanders and Susie Jackson at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, 11 days after a gunman entered the church and killed nine people – all African-Americans. Police contend the attack was racially motived.
The tragedy “shook an America that didn’t want to believe this kind of hate could still exist,” said Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley Jr. during a eulogy for Hurd.
Riley said the killings will go down in history with other episodes of church violence, referencing the Civil Rights-era bombing of a Baptist church in Alabama that killed four girls.
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley attended the services along with U.S. Sen. Tim Scott and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Speaking at the combined service for Sanders, 26, and Jackson, 87, Haley said the shooting happened on her watch, and she promised “we will make this right.” The governor did not say what actions she planned to take.
Outside the church, Jackson told The Associated Press that it is “really time for a new South.”
“This was the most traumatic hit since Dr. Martin Luther King was killed 50 years ago. This could be a defining moment for the American dream for all its people,” Jackson said. “This is a resurrection. Look around, there are white and black people together.”
Meanwhile, a woman was arrested early Saturday on the grounds of the South Carolina Capitol in Columbia after scaling a flagpole to rip down a Confederate flag that flew at the Statehouse. Bree Newsome, 30, of Charlotte, was arrested immediately afterward. She and James Ian Tyson, 30, also of Charlotte, face misdemeanor charges in the incident.
An official at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center said both were released from jail Saturday after posting bond.