Clementa Pinckney and Mother Emanuel Church

Rev. Clementa Pinckney of the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina was one of nine people shot dead at the church last night in what authorities are calling a hate crime. The details are chilling. The shooting took place at a prayer group. The suspect, 21-year-old Dylann Roof, was apprehended in Shelby, North Carolina, roughly 250 miles from the scene of the crime. Roof reportedly spent an hour with the prayer group before he began firing, sitting next to Reverend Pinckney. Who was Pinckney, and what’s the significance of the AME Church?