Events to honor victims and survivors of Charleston Church Shooting

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – Monday will mark nine years since a shooting at Emanuel AME Church that left nine people dead.

A short program will take place inside Emanuel AME Church’s sanctuary at noon to honor the victims and survivors. It will be followed by a balloon release outside, and the church’s chimes will ring in the victims’ memory.

Worshipers were attending a bible study at the historic downtown Charleston church on the night of June 17, 2015.  A man they welcomed to attend the study pulled out a gun and shot nine innocent people.

S.C. Senator Reverend Clementa C. Pinckney (who was the church’s pastor at the time), Cynthia Graham Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Rev. Daniel Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, and Myra Thompson were all killed in the shooting.

Three people in the room at the time of the shooting survived, including Tywanza Sanders’s mother Felecia Sanders, her granddaughter Ka’mya Manigault, and Polly Sheppard.

Rev. Pinckney’s wife, Jennifer Pinckney, and their then-six-year-old daughter, Malana, were in another room across the hall at the time of the shooting. They also survived.

The church called upon Charleston residents to perform random acts of kindness last Friday in honor of the victims.