– ‘The Holy City’ –
The shooting came at a time of heightened tension in America after several high-profile killings of unarmed black men at the hands of white police triggered protests and a national debate on race.
A picture on Roof’s Facebook page showed him wearing a jacket emblazoned with the flags of apartheid-era South Africa and former white minority-ruled Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.
He is also pictured with a car with a license plate referring to the “Confederate States of America,” the secessionist slave-owning south defeated in the US Civil War.
The Atlantic coast city of Charleston is known locally as “The Holy City,” due to its large number of churches, many of them community anchors for a diverse range of ethnic groups.
The scene in the picturesque city as a traumatic 24 hours drew to a close was one of stunned grief, rather than rage, while a small demonstration took place in New York, where some protesters wept at the loss of life.
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