Eulogies in Charleston for Slain Members of Black Church Focus on Need for Change

Parents of Tywanza Sanders, Tyrone Sanders and Felicia Sanders, comfort each other at the graveside of their son at Emanuel AME Cemetery in Charleston, S.C., on June 27, 2015. Grace Beahm/The Post And Courier via AP

CHARLESTON, S.C.—Speaking at the funerals for three of the victims of a deadly attack on a historic African-American church in South Carolina, eulogizers said Saturday that the lives lost had become a catalyst for change.

The services were held for Cynthia Hurd, Tywanza Sanders, and Susie Jackson at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, 11 days after a gunman entered the church and killed nine people—all African-Americans. Police contend the attack was racially motived.

The tragedy “shook an America that didn’t want to believe this kind of hate could still exist,” said Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley Jr. during a eulogy for Hurd.

This was the most traumatic hit since Dr. Martin Luther King was killed 50 years ago.

— Rev. Jesse Jackson