';Hate won’t win,' pastor says at South Side anniversary vigil

June 17, 2016 at 12:02a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Dr. Martin Luther King said it on numer- ous occasions during the civil-rights struggles of the 1960s and, in light of two high-profile mass shootings, the Rev. Dr. Brandon Davis wants to make sure people remember and internalize it.

“Hate won’t win! Do you hear me? Hate won’t win! Love will win,” the Rev. Dr. Davis said in a homily he delivered during a vigil Thursday evening to honor the nine churchgoers who were shot to death one year ago today at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C.

A few dozen people attended the 45-minute program at St. Andrewes AME Church, 521 W. Earle Ave., on the South Side. The prayer vigil also was to honor the 49 people killed and 53 injured in Sunday morning’s attack at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., said Dr. Davis, pastor.

Federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Dylann Roof, 22, in the racially motivated attack June 17, 2015, in Charleston.

“It’s one year later from when an American terrorist walked in Mother Emanuel and took the lives of nine people,” Dr. Davis said. “It was a dastardly act against people who welcomed him to the house of God.

“Today, we’re still grieving because hate continues to snuff out the lives of people who do not deserve it.”

Nevertheless, it’s crucial that the church accepts people for who they are, regardless of their sins, and acts as an instrument that reflects the love of Jesus Christ. That means even praying for and trying to love people such as Roof, Omar Mateen, the terrorist gunman in the Pulse nightclub massacre, and others who commit violent acts while seeking justice, Dr. Davis said.

Evangelist Hilda J. Atwood, associate minister, read from Amos 7:7-17, which in essence talks about how King Jeroboam of Israel did not want Amos, who often addressed social issues, to prophesy about the treatment of God’s people regarding such issues and the social order.

In the passage, Amos is instructed to return to Judah and earn a living as a prophet, but counters that God had told him to preach to the people of Israel.

During her “Litany of Remembrance,” Evangelist Brenda M. Smith read aloud the names of the nine killed in Charleston and asked attendees to pray for their families. She also called for people to feel “righteous anger” while refraining from giving in to hatred.

Also during the vigil, prayers were spoken for humanity, peace and social justice.

Dr. Davis told his audience those killed in the oldest AME church in the South will live on in memory. He added the tragedy illustrates the importance of neither succumbing to hate nor giving up in the face of adversity.

“We’ve come to say on the eve of their deaths, ‘Hate won’t win. Love will win,’” he said.