By Delisa Morris
Impunity Watch Technical Director
CHARLESTON, South Carolina — President Barack Obama delivered a heart felt eulogy and rousing political speech and a thoughtful reconciliation on race in America when he left the White House for Charleston, South Carolina on Friday to eulogize the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who was gunned down last week by a racist terrorist during Bible study.
The President surprised the nation when he belted out the chorus of ‘Amazing Grace’ at the end of his speech, bringing the mourners to their feet to join him in song.
“As a nation, out of this terrible tragedy, God has visited grace upon us for he has allowed us to see where we’ve been blind,” Obama said. “He’s given us the chance, where we’ve been lost, to find our best selves.”
From President to Preacher, the President’s remarks often sounded like a sermon with an organ in the background swooning behind the impassioned passages.
The President, first lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, a bipartisan host of high-level members of Congress and Hillary Clinton all attended the memorial service at TD Arena in downtown Charleston. Last Wednesday, a 21-year-old man opened fire at a Bible study inside Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, killing nine.
The shooter declared he was there to “kill black people,” and an online manifesto attributed to him contained white supremacist screeds.
Obama, in his eulogy, said the killer likely assumed he “would deepen divisions that trace back to our nation’s original sin.”
“But God works in mysterious ways,” Obama said. “God had different ideas. He didn’t know he was being used by God.”
“The alleged killer could have never anticipated the way the families of the fallen would respond when they saw him in court in the midst of unspeakable grief, with words of forgiveness,” Obama said.
The country, he argued, has responded to the church shooting “with a thoughtful introspection and self-examination that we so rarely see in public life.”
See President Obama’s full remarks here.
For more information, please see:
CNN – Obama’s Charleston eulogy: ‘Amazing Grace’ – 27 June 2015
DailyMail – Obama’s amazing grace: President gives searing speech on race and leads church in song during emotional eulogy for pastor killed by race-hate gunman – 27 June 2015
The Washington Post – Obama calls for racial understanding, unity as thousands mourn S.C. pastor – 26 June 2015
Whitehouse.gov – Remarks by the President in Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney – 26 June 2015
