Melvin Graham sat on the right of the arena with other families and listened as Barack Obama read the names of the nine churchgoers who were killed by a White supremacist at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.
He heard Obama call the name of his younger sister, Cynthia Graham Hurd.
That was emotional enough. But at one point, the president broke out singing “Amazing Grace.’’ Pastors, families, choir members joined in.
“That’s one of those moments when you just wanted to break out and cry,’’ said Graham, who had heard and sung the hymn plenty of times over the years. “Not in the context of having lost a loved one.’’
The shooting 10 years ago at Emanuel AME Church, a historic Black church also known as “Mother Emanuel," shocked the nation. Members− including Cynthia, a librarian − were at Bible study that June 17 evening when a White man they had welcomed shot nine of them to death. Five others survived.
