Updated at 2:15 p.m.
Pastor Norvel Goff Sr., interim pastor at “Mother” Emanuel AME Church and presiding pastor over the funeral of The Rev. Clementa Pinckney, just acknowledged from the audience members of the King family and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
President Obama, who just entered TD Arena with First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Jill Biden, is still slated to speak shortly.
Updated at 2 p.m.
The audience was just made aware that President Obama was ready to speak. Recognition was given to Speaker of the House John Boehner, and a representative from the Greek Orthodox Church.
Before that, friends told stories of a shy, quiet man who made an impact through the word, and public legislation. A cousin said their grandmother would sing a song that she said was representative of the life Pinckney would lead.
“I want to live so God can use me anyplace, anywhere, anytime,” the cousin said. “You didn’t have to be black. You didn’t have to be a Democrat. (Pinckney) wasn’t a radical. He wasn’t even pro-black. But if you approach him with a wrong you wanted to make right, he wouldn’t stop til it was right.”
Updated at 1:20 p.m.:
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama emerged from Air Force One in Charleston at 1:15 p.m. From there, the pair is headed to the TD Arena at the College of Charleston, where President Obama is expected to deliver the eulogy for The Rev. Clementa Pinckney. According to a schedule for the president, the eulogy is expected to take place about 3 p.m.
From earlier:
More than 5,000 gathered inside the TD Arena at the College of Charleston to remember South Carolina State Sen. Clementa Pinckney for the work he did as a legislator and a church leader.
Pinckney, 41, was one of nine shot to death in Charleston’s historic “Mother” Emanuel AME Church, where he was pastor, on June 17. Dylann Storm Roof, 21, has been charged with nine counts of murder after allegedly sitting with a group of parishioners at the church during Bible study nearly an hour before opening fire.
The Rev. John H. Gillison said anyone who would have come across Pinckney would have found him to be real at all times.
“Sometimes when you observe people from public galleries or from afar … when you sit with them at the dinner table and listen to them as the real person came out,” Gillison said to those inside the arena. “You found the same man (with Pinckney).”
Police turned away thousands who traveled across the state or crossed state lines to mourn the loss of Pinckney.
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