Mother Emanuel AME remembers Emanuel 9 victims on 9th anniversary of shooting

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Mother Emanuel AME Church is remembering the nine parishioners of the church who were gunned down in a shooting on June 17, 2015.

Monday marks the ninth anniversary of the Charleston church shooting.

The shooting claimed the lives of the church’s lead pastor, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, and eight of its parishioners: the Rev. Sharonda Coleman Singleton, Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance, the Rev. DePayne Middleton, Tywanza Sanders, the Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr. and Myra Thompson.

The church’s current pastor, the Rev. Eric Manning, led a remembrance service at noon inside the historic church.

“What do you do when your place of refuge has fallen under assault?” he said.

Manning delivered a message with the theme of taking time and taking refuge in God as the church has done to heal in the years after the massacre.

Following that service, family members of the victims gathered on the steps of the historic church where 81 white and purple balloons had been gathered representing the nine years that have passed since the nine lives were taken.

“It’s hard for me but these balloons represent the nine angels that floated away that night,” Denise Quarles, the daughter of victim Myra Thompson, said.

Five gold balloons represented the five survivors of the attack.

The church’s current pastor, the Rev. Eric Manning, led a remembrance service with the theme of taking time and taking refuge in God as the church has worked to heal in the years after the massacre.

Currently, there is a park honoring one of the victims, but another memorial is set to open soon.

Manning says the memorial will be built in a way where the fellowship benches can allow visitors to have meaningful conversations to honor and remember the nine victims.

READ MORE: Nine years later: How the church is memorializing the Emanuel 9

The shooting happened at the end of a Wednesday night Bible study and was the result of what investigators called a hate-motivated attack that was carried out by Dylann Roof, who was then 21 years old. Roof told investigators that he hoped to start a race war.

But rather than a race war, the families of the victims expressed forgiveness for Roof at his bond hearing, sending a powerful statement in the wake of the killings.

That theme of forgiveness has been repeated in the years since the massacre.