Charleston pays tribute to church shooting victims
The names of the nine parishioners murdered during a bible study in South Carolina were read out in a service as the church where the brutal shooting took place reopened today.
The service at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston was held before a packed congregation as the city prepares for several events today to show solidarity with the victim's families and friends.
ITV News Washington Correspondent Robert Moore reports:
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People are also planning to join hands and form a peace chain along a bridge connecting Charleston to one of its suburbs.
The reopening comes as thousands of people took to the streets in South Carolina's capitol, Columbiato protest against the Confederate flag that has become a target of anger following the shooting.
The Confederate flag has long been a divisive symbol in the United States and the two Republicans' calls for its removal could signal a shift in a country where the vast majority of black Americans vote Democratic.
The man charged over the killings, Dylann Roof, 21, held the Confederate flag in a photograph on a website and displayed the flags of defeated white-supremacist governments in Africa on his Facebook page.