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June 29, 2015

Funerals for Church Massacre Victims Continue; Obama Calls for Tackling Racial Bias 
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Funerals continue in South Carolina for the African-American victims of
the massacre at Emanuel AME Church. Laid to rest this weekend were
Cynthia Graham Hurd, Susie Jackson, Tywanza Sanders and the Reverend De
Payne Middleton-Doctor. On Friday, President Obama delivered the eulogy
at the funeral for South Carolina state senator and Reverend Clementa
Pinckney, the pastor of Emanuel AME. In his address, Obama urged the
nation to tackle racial bias and inequities in the political, economic
and judicial system.

President Obama: "For too long, we've been blind to the way past
injustices continue to shape the present. Perhaps we see that now.
Perhaps this tragedy causes us to ask some tough questions about how we
can permit so many of our children to languish in poverty or attend
dilapidated schools or grow up without prospects for a job or for a
career. Perhaps it causes us to examine what we're doing to cause some
of our children to hate. Perhaps it softens hearts towards those lost
young men, tens and tens of thousands caught up in the criminal justice
system, and lead us to make sure that that system is not infected with
bias."

President Obama closed his address by leading the crowd in a version of
"Amazing Grace."

 

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