Over the course of centuries, black churches served as hush harbors, where slaves could worship in safety, praise houses, where their free descendants could gather and shout “Hallelujah…”… rest stops for the weary along the Underground Railroad, bunkers for the foot soldiers of the civil-rights movement.

They have been and continue to be community centers, where we organize for jobs and justice, places of scholarship and network, places where children are loved and fed and kept out of harms way and told that they are beautiful and smart and taught that they matter….A sacred place, this church, not just for blacks, not just for Christians but for every American who cares about the steady expansion…… of human rights and human dignity in this country, a foundation stone for liberty and justice for all.

That’s what the church meant.

….What is true in the south is true for America. Clem understood that justice grows out of recognition of ourselves in each other; that my liberty depends on you being free, too.*

~ Barack Hussein Obama II.    b. 1961      United States         44th President of the United States

Historical Age: American Era, 1950-2000 Astrological Age, Age of Pisces, 1 AD – 2000; Sun Sign, Leo .

*Remarks by President Obama in eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney.