President focuses on gun control, more jobs
Barack Obama sings eulogy for Rev. Clementa Pinckney at the priest's funeral in Charleston. (Photo: AFP)
Charleston: President Barack Obama delivered a passionate discourse on America’s racial history on Saturday and broke into song during an eulogy for a state legislator and pastor, slain along with eight other black churchgoers in what police called a hate crime.
Obama also called for gun control and efforts to eliminate poverty and job discrimination, and said the rebel Confederate battle flag must be removed from places of honor. “For many, black and white, that flag was a reminder of systemic oppression and racial subjugation,” he said.
The President came to eulogise the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, a state senator whose church was founded by the leader of a failed slave revolt and burned to the ground by angry whites in 1822. After the Civil War, the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church led efforts to expand equal rights in the South, hosting Martin Luther King Jr during campaigns in South Carolina.
Obama sang on Saturday: “ Amazing grace! How sweet the sound/ That saved a wretch like me!/I once was lost, but now am found;/ Was blind, but now I see.”
( Source : AFP )
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