Hundreds of people waited several hours on Wednesday to pay their respects to South Carolina state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, the pastor who was killed last week along with eight other people at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.
As his casket was brought into the Statehouse, the crowd sang, "We Shall Overcome." Pinckney, who served for nearly two decades in the state senate, is in the rotunda, flanked by honor guard members, his fellow senators, his wife, and family. One mourner, Ann Shephard, 65, of Columbia, said "a cloud has been over" her since the shooting. "I look at it from every angle, and it doesn't make sense to me."
Pinckney's casket was carried to the Statehouse by two white horses, which passed the Confederate flag that flies on the grounds. State Sen. J Thomas McElveen told the Los Angeles Times that while he's focusing on the "amazing life" his friend Pinckney lived, he is still "troubled that the flag a murderer waved as a banner of hatred flies as his body lies in repose. I'm not happy about that, I can tell you that. I can't find a legitimate reason it should remain in Statehouse grounds." Catherine Garcia
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