CHARLESTON, S.C. (CN) - President Barack Obama delivered an emotional and often rousing eulogy to to the Rev. Clementa Pinckney and the eight other victims of the church shooting that shocked this normally genteel community to its core.
Thousands of mourners packed the TD Arena for hours in the city's historic downtown Friday to pay tribute to the fallen.
Hundreds more who couldn't get inside either stood outside for hours in the hot sun, or made their way to one of several alternative viewing sites in the area to watch the service.
President Barack Obama was accompanied to the funeral by First Lady Michele Obama. Vice President Joe Biden, his wife Dr. Jill Biden, former Secretary of State and current Democratic presidential candidate Hilary Clinton, were among the dignitaries in attendance.
The president spoke of Pinckney as both a pastor and a statesman, and said his friend, "embodied a politics that was neither mean nor small ... and conducted himself quietly and kindly and diligently."
"He encouraged progress not by pushing his ideas alone, but by seeking out the ideas of others and partnering to make things happen," Obama continued.
"What a good man," the president said a little later. With that he paused.
"Sometimes, I think that's the best thing to hope for when you are eulogized," he continued. "After all the words and recitations and resumes are read, to say that somebody was a good man."
"Preacher at 13, pastor at 18, public servant by 23 ... what a life Clementa Pinckney lived ... and then to lose him at 41, slain in his sanctuary with eight wonderful members of his flock, each bound together by a common commitment to God," Obama said.
The president then turned his thoughts to the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church itself, a church he recalled as being "built by slaves seeking liberty, and then burned to the ground only to rise up again from the ashes."
He then traced its history through the years of the civil rights movement right up through the night of the murders.
"Mother Emanuel Church is a foundation stone of liberty and justice for all," he said.
The president continued: "We don't know that the alleged killer knew that history, but he knew the meaning of his violent act ... and the history of violent acts used as a way to terrorize and oppress."
"He assumed the violence of his act would deepen divisions that trace back to our nation's original sin ... oh, but God works in mysterious ways. God has different ideas. He didn't know he was being used by God. ... Blinded by hatred, the killer could not see the grace that surrounded Rev. Pinckney and the members of the Bible study group.
"The alleged killer couldn't have imagined how the families of the slain, given the opportunity to confront him in the midst of their unspeakable grief, would forgive him," the president said.
"He could not have imagined how the City of Charleston, the state of South Carolina and the United States would respond ... that they would do so not only with revulsion at his deeds, but with thoughtful introspection. Blinded by hatred, he failed to comprehend what Rev. Pinckney so well understood, the power of God's grace," Obama said.
