'Mother Emanuel': Spiritual home for blacks in Charleston

The black church where a horrific shooting claimed the lives of nine people boasts a rich history echoing America's own painful passage through slavery, civil rights, and now, its racially turbulent present.
Many congregants refer to the Emanuel AME Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina as "Mother Emanuel" because of its storied past, as well as its central role as a place of worship and social gathering place for many in the city's African American community.
The church is one of dozens of African Methodist Episcopal (AME) churches across the United States, the oldest independent denomination founded by blacks.
AME churches are an offshoot from a white-run Methodist denomination that once refused entry to black members.

The picturesque white brick Gothic church with its weather vane-topped steeple -- one of the most recognizable structures in Charleston -- has come to be seen as a symbolic beacon for African American worshippers not just in the city, but throughout the nation.
President Barack Obama alluded to Emanuel Church's central place in Charleston's history, in poignant remarks Thursday addressing the tragedy.

"Mother Emanuel is, in fact, more than a church," the president said.
"This is a place of worship that was founded by African-Americans seeking liberty. This is a church that was burned to the ground, because its worshippers worked to end slavery," Obama said.

"When the laws banned worshipping, they moved underground," the president said. And during civil rights protests "they moved marches from this church's steps," he added, calling the church "a sacred place in the history of Charleston and in the history of America."
The oldest AME congregation in the southern United States, Emanuel has beginnings dating back to the late 1700s, when a handful of slaves gathered to worship with free African Americans.
It was formally founded as Emanuel AME church in 1816, one of several congregations that split from Charleston's Methodist Episcopal church and soon became one of the largest AME congregations in the nation at the time.