Not In Our Town: Bloomington/Normal and local churches are participating in aVigil Prayer Service to lift up the families in Charleston, the South Carolina community, and the nation with prayer and reflection from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday at Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church, 801 West Market Street, Bloomington.
In addition to lighting nine candles in memory of and offering individual prayers lifting up each of the nine victims of last week's racially motivated shooting spree at Charleston's Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the vigil will include a communal sing and one-sentence prayers from those in attendance. Bloomington's Second Presbyterian Church, First Christian Church, and Moses Montefiore Temple are expected to lead devotions at the event.
NIOT:B/N leader Marc Miller stressed the assembly also is aimed at reaching "those with hate in their hearts that God can turn into love." One image from shooter Dylann Roof's Facebook page showed him wearing a jacket decorated with the flags of two nations noted for their white supremacist and racial segregation policies: Apartheid-era South Africa and Rhodesia. According to a childhood friend, Roof went on a rant about the shooting of Trayvon Martin and the 2015 Baltimore protests that were sparked by the death of Freddie Gray while Gray was in police custody. He also often claimed that "blacks were taking over the world." Roof reportedly told friends and neighbors of his plans to kill people, including a plot to attack the College of Charleston, but his claims were not taken seriously.
Victims of the church massacre included:
Rev. Clementa Pinckney (NBC news photo)
- Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd (54) – Bible study member and manager for the Charleston County Public Library system
- Susie Jackson (87) – a Bible study and church choir member
- Ethel Lee Lance (70) – the church sexton
- Depayne Middleton-Doctor (49) – a Bible study teacher employed as a school administrator and admissions coordinator at Southern Wesleyan University
- Clementa C. Pinckney (41) – the church pastor and a South Carolina state senator
- Tywanza Sanders (26) – a Bible study member; nephew of Susie Jackson
- Daniel Simmons (74) – a pastor who also served at Greater Zion AME Church in Awendaw
- Sharonda Coleman-Singleton (45) – a pastor; also a speech therapist and track coach at Goose Creek High School
- Myra Thompson (59) – a Bible study teacher