Several thousand people crowded onto one of the longest bridges in the Americas on Sunday and joined hands in a show of solidarity with the victims of the Charleston church massacre.
From Charleston to suburban Mount Pleasant, they formed a line across the Cooper River to forge what organizers called a Bridge to Peace Unity Chain nearly 4km long.
“It’s not black lives that matter anymore. All lives matter,” said Black Lives Matter leader Jay Johnson to loud cheers from a mainly white crowd before the event began.
Photo: EPA
“We are united as the human race,” he said, stripping off his thick dark Black Lives Matter sweatshirt in the early evening heat and humidity.
Promoted on social media, the event was organized in a matter of days by local housewives and the chief of Mount Pleasant’s police department.
“This incredible turnout says it all,”organizer Dorsey Fairbairn said at the event, where a bagpiper played Amazing Grace, a chaplain read a prayer and vehicles crossing the span honked their horns in solidarity.
Once up on the Arthur Ravenel Jr Bridge and holding hands, participants observed nine minutes of silence — one for each of the victims of Wednesday’s bloodbath at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
The span, named for a South Carolina politician who once described the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People as mentally retarded, is the third-longest cable-stayed bridge in the western hemisphere.
The mood was a joyful counterpoint to the somber atmosphere that loomed over a two-hour Sunday service at the historic African-American sanctuary earlier in the day.
A 21-year-old white male from South Carolina’s interior, Dylann Roof, is charged with nine counts of murder in connection with the Emanuel church shooting, which he reportedly hoped would ignite racial conflict.
Friends and families, both black and white, clapped hands and sang songs along bridge, took souvenir selfies and wrote condolence messages in chalk on the pavement.
They waved at a flotilla of small boats in the river below, hugged each other, exchanged high fives and lifted US flags into the breeze.
“This is how we do race riots in Charleston,” quipped one man, using a dose of irony to sum up the cheerful mood.
The huge turnout contrasted with a protest at a park near the Emanuel church, billed as “a final burial of white supremacy,” that attracted only about 40 people.
Speakers linked racism with social inequality and complied when police asked demonstrators not to climb up onto a statue of an early 19th century South Carolina politician who endorsed slavery.
In another Charleston park on Sunday, a memorial for Confederate veterans of the Civil War was found vandalized with red spray paint. Charleston, where the first shots of the US Civil War were fired, abounds with references to the Confederacy.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese