South Carolina will take a step forward in healing the wounds of last week’s mass shooting when President Barack Obama arrives on Friday to deliver the eulogy for the pastor of the historic church where the attack took place. Reverend Clementa Pinckney, a widely admired state senator and pastor of Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, was among the nine people who died when a gunman opened fire during Bible study.
The massacre has sparked an intense dialogue across the southern United States over the legacy of slavery and its symbols, centering on the Civil War-era battle flag of the Confederacy.
