World News
Senator killed in Charleston shooting─── 10:10 Thu, 18 Jun 2015
Washington - The pastor and also a senator of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston has been named as one of the nine victims that had been gunned down by an unknown assailant.
The pastor is reverend Clementa Pinckney, aged 41, who is also a state senator for South Carolina.He was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1996, and was elected to the State Senate in 2000, at the age of 27, according to his online profile.
His church profile describes him as the youngest African-American in South Carolina to be elected to the state legislature.
The Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church is in Charleston, a city of about 130 000 people in the southern US state of South Carolina.
It is the oldest church of that denomination in the southern United States, according to the church website, and referred to as "Mother Emanuel".
The church's origins lie in the late 18th-century Methodist movement in the area, as a church for black worshippers.
The wooden two-storey building that was built on the present site in 1872 was destroyed by an earthquake, and replaced by the current brick structure in 1891.
Reverend Clementa C Pinckney is reported to be one of the nine killed in the shooting.
