Death of respected pastor 'devastating'

Rev. Clementa Pinckney at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston in 2010. Photo / Grace Beahm

Clementa Pinckney was busy on Thursday, not unusual for a man who was both a respected pastor and state senator in his native South Carolina.

He began the day at home in Ridgeland, with his wife, Jennifer, and two daughters, before driving to the statehouse in Columbia two hours away. He had a 9:30am (local time) finance committee meeting. They talked about scholarship funding. He left early to make it to North Charleston for a speech by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton at a community college. Then it was off to his congregation in downtown, the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, for the regular Bible study.

Pinckney, 41, was leading the Bible group when a gunman opened fire inside the church. Nine people were killed, police said, and Pinckney was among the dead.

"This is just devastating, to lose such a respected man," said state Senator Larry Grooms of Charleston, who served with Pinckney for 15 years. "The whole thing is unbelievable."

Pinckney had long known the power of the pulpit. He had taken to preaching at age 13, following a deeply rooted family tradition. His great-grandfather and uncle had been well-known AME pastors who fought to end whites-only political primaries and desegregate school busing.

Pinckney soon discovered that the familial gift had not passed him by.

"If you put him in a room of 20 people, he'd be leading it by the time you came out the door," said Albert Kleckley, a county probate judge who had known Pinckney for years.

Pinckney had his own church and a hand in the statehouse, following the example set by many black religious leaders in the South who found common cause with their beliefs in politics.

He was first elected to the state House of Representatives in 1996, at age 23. In 2000, he made it to the state Senate, becoming, at age 27, the youngest African-American in South Carolina to do so.

Recently, said those who knew him, Pinckney appeared to have found a cause, the kind of galvanising injustice that the pastors in his family had seized upon in the past. That came in April, when Walter Scott, an unarmed black man, was fatally shot by a police officer in nearby North Charleston.

Pinckney spoke out against what he called a murder. He led vigils. He pushed for a state law to require police to wear body cameras.

In early June, he organised a community prayer service with other church leaders in the area, recalled the Reverend Robert Kennedy. The event was held at Kennedy's church, St Peter's AME in North Charleston.

"He brought us together, the Methodist bishops, to address the problem of gun violence in light of Walter Scott," Kennedy said. "It was all him."

Before Thursday, meanwhile, the historic congregation of the Emanuel AME Church, the oldest of its kind in the South, had already seen more than its fair share of tumult and hate. It was founded by worshippers fleeing racism and burned to the ground for its connection with a thwarted slave revolt. For years its meetings were conducted in secret to evade laws that banned all-black services. It was jolted by an earthquake in 1886. Civil rights luminaries spoke from its pulpit and led marches from its steps. For nearly 200 years it had been the site of struggle, resistance and change.

To those watching in Charleston and from afar, Thursday's events were devastating.

"It's not just a church. It's also a symbol ... of black freedom," said Robert Greene, who studies the 20th century South at the University of South Carolina. "That's why so many folks are so upset, because it's a church that represents so much about the rich history and tradition of African Americans in Charleston."

In Charleston, the church is affectionately known as "Mother Emanuel", a nod to its age and its eminence in the community. It is a place people take pride in, said the Reverend Stephen Singleton, who was pastor there from 2006 to 2010 - all soaring ceilings and fine pinewood floors, with an antique pipe organ that had been shipped from Europe more than a century ago.