On Tuesday (Dec, 15), the Conference of National Black Churches, a decades-old black church organization, will host the latest such interracial religious gathering in the city where the shooting occurred in June.
More than 300 clergy and community leaders are expected to attend the three-day (Dec. 15-17) conference. It will include a worship service at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the place where the Bible study was being held. Dylann Roof, the white suspect in the killings, who had hoped to “start a race war,” has been charged with federal hate crimes.
“We’re not going to be able to resolve the issues of racism alone, whether it is the black church alone or the white church alone,” said the Rev. Marvin McMickle, president of Colgate Rochester Crozier Divinity School, who will speak at the meeting. “I think both hands have to be on the plow.”