Chicago Services Remember Victims Of Charleston Church Shooting
CHICAGO (CBS) --In Chicago several churches held interfaith, interracial services offering prayers for healing after Wednesday's shooting in Charleston.
WBBM's Mariam Sobh reports at Grant Memorial AME Church on the South Side, Reverend Emmanuel Vaughn and church members waived nine balloons to represent the lives lost.
"We have come out this day to show solidarity for Mother Emanuel," he said.
Vaughn says he was devastated when he first heard the news.
"How dare you...to go into a religious institution and a house of God and to commit an atrocity of such magnitude against a people that invited you into the house," he said.
He says that they have been working with the younger members of the church to explain to them what happened and he says they will not let the tragedy keep them in fear.
Vaughn says even though the tragedy has renewed conversation about race in America, he says they have been standing against issues like racism for decades.
"We always stood up against racism and bigotry and ageism and sexism," Vaughn said. "We stood up against all of these things. We sometimes get disappointed because it seems to fall on deaf ears."
He says he is hopeful for change.
CBS 2's Jeremy Ross reports Bishop David Rhwnica Daniels preached to dozens inside St. James AME Church in Roseland.
"They embraced him with love, but he destroyed them with hatred," he said.
Bishop Daniels is from South Africa and once lived in South Carolina and knew most of those who were killed.