CHARLESTON, S.C. — A somber sound rings out over downtown each day as Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church's gothic bell tower chimes nine times.
One toll for each of the nine Black worshippers shot and killed a decade ago in one of the nation's most heinous hate crimes.
They're now memorialized as the Emanuel 9. Among them was the church's pastor, the Reverend Clementa Pinckney who was a South Carolina state senator.
"No one really would expect something like this to happen in your sanctuary. This is one of the safest places you should feel safe at all times," says Emanuel's Minister of Music Wayne Singleton. "To have someone to violate that sanctity, it really hurts."
"It's still fresh in many of our minds and in our in our hearts," says Charleston City Councilman William Dudley Gregorie, who grew up in the church where his family has belonged since the 1800s.
Known affectionately as Mother Emanuel for its role in establishing the AME faith, the church is the oldest Black congregation in the South, dating to slavery. So there was no mistaking the symbolism when on June 17, 2015, white supremacist Dylann Roof, then 21, targeted the church hoping to stoke a race war.
After being welcomed into Wednesday night Bible study, he shot and killed nine worshippers as they bowed their heads for a closing prayer — Pinckney, Cynthia Graham Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, Depayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, and Myra Thompson, who was leading the lesson that night just hours after becoming a licensed minister.
Five others survived, including the pastor's wife, Jennifer Pinckney, and one of her daughters, Tywanza's mother, Felicia Sanders, and her granddaughter, and Polly Sheppard.
Roof is now on federal death row. Gregorie says his plan backfired in Charleston, known as the cradle of secession and where the first shots were fired in the Civil War.
"For that to happen in this city with a very hateful person planning a race riot to divide and conquer," says Gregorie. "In fact, I think it brought us as a people closer together."
Over the last ten years, the city of Charleston has taken steps to address disparities stemming from its fraught history. The city council voted to issue a formal apology for slavery in what was one of the busiest ports of the slave trade, and it established a commission to promote equity and inclusion.
Gregorie says the city is getting there, but the work is not done. He says African-Americans have long suffered and sacrificed to bring about racial progress in America.
"It's not minorities or African-Americans that have to change," says Gregorie. "It's white people. White people have to change. They control the narrative, the dialogue."
The Emanuel congregation has long been a part of the story of race in America. The church was destroyed and more than 30 members were executed in the 1820s for planning a slave rebellion.
The racist attack ten years ago is yet another tragedy that Emanuel has to overcome.
"We as the church still experience trauma," says the Rev. Eric Manning. He's been the pastor here since the year after the massacre, and it's been a difficult journey for the congregation.
"We have the motto, 'we are a light in the pathway of darkness,' and we embrace that," he says. "But in this season at the same token, we have to remember that Mother Emanuel is resilient, gone through a lot, will continue to go through a lot."
He says one way the church is trying to move forward is by creating a new space for reflection and healing.
"Watch your step," he says, leading visitors out of the church basement, where the killings occurred, and into a side courtyard where a memorial is being installed.
Two elongated white marble benches flank a center fountain.
"There you have the names of the Emanuel Nine inscribed on the circumference of the fountain with a cross in the middle," Manning explains. "Water will come out of the center of the cross and, of course, cascade on around the sides."
It's designed by Michael Arad, architect of the September 11th memorial in New York.
Manning says the idea is to present a crossroads, where people can consider the stakes if hate is allowed to thrive.
"If we think of ourselves as travelers, there are certain key things that we should always try to embrace," says Manning. "One is the acknowledgement of racism, acknowledging the hatred therein, and then working towards a path of reconciliation."
Manning says ten years later remembering is important, but warns against being stuck in the past.
"How do we ensure that this doesn't happen again?" he asks. How do we speak out against hate? How do we embrace understanding that all of us are created in the image of God?"
That's a theme you hear time and time again from people touched by the Emanuel massacre. "There is transformation out of tragedy," says the Rev. Sharon Risher whose mother Ethel Lee Lance was among those killed.
Risher says her mom was known for being a snazzy dresser, her big smile, and always wanting to help. Risher says she went down a dark hole after the slayings, carrying anger and bitterness, that she has now channeled into activism.
"This ministry of social justice is something that has grown out of that tremendous pain."
She is still pushing for South Carolina to pass a state hate crime law, and lobbying Congress to close the background check loophole that allowed the shooter to buy a gun despite previous drug arrests.
Risher says she would have expected to see more progress by now. "Being Black in America is just a challenge anyway," she says. "And the whole thing behind what happened was hate and we continue to deal with this."
Other family members also find solace in speaking out against hate.
Melvin L. Graham, Jr. is the brother of Cynthia Graham Hurd. She was a librarian, and was at the church that night working on a poster outlining Emanuel's rich history when a friend asked her to stick around for Bible study.
"When she was executed, I made a promise to be her voice," says Graham.
He says the Emanuel massacre showed that racial violence is real. "No one had their guard up. Everyone thought that we had evolved beyond this type of thing," he says. "But if you paid attention, you realized it was under the surface, just bubbling, waiting to come up."
And he says it remains a significant threat in the country today, and that's why he's staying involved. He says the root of this tragedy has been a problem throughout history — not being able to see others as human. "They're not people. They're different. They're expendable."
He sees that kind of thinking in today's debate over immigration, and calls it a vicious cycle. "In the past, it was Blacks and African-Americans that was the cause of all the problems. Now it's Hispanics," Graham says. "Who's next? And that's what scares me the most."
Back at Emanuel, Reverend Manning is readying for a busy week of memorial events at the church. The congregation is in the world spotlight now. Worship services draw celebrities, international visitors and tour groups.
He wants them to leave Charleston with this message: "Love is stronger than hate. And we are not going to let hate have the final say."
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