While Sunday's massacre was the worst mass shooting in American history, it was almost a year ago that nine people were killed at Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston.

At Monday's vigil the Rev. Betty Diaz Clark came and prayed for the crowd, symbolically linking the two national tragedies.

"I am here because of the love shown to us at Mother Emanuel," she said.

Last year after the attack at the church, church members and the Charleston community showed a remarkable ability to forgive the shooter, or at least not to express hatred.

"That is the love that brought me here," Clark said. "And we must pray not just for today, but for tomorrow."

Featured

Austin Walters died from an overdose in 2021 after taking a Xanax pill laced with fentanyl, his father said. A new law named after Austin and aimed at preventing deaths from fentanyl has resulted in its first convictions in Georgia, prosecutors said. (Family photo)

Credit: Family photo