10 Years Later: Families reflect on hope and healing after Mother Emanuel church shooting

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Tuesday marks 10 years since the largest mass shooting at a church that changed the lives of people across the Carolinas.

A gunman went into a Charleston church and fatally shot 9 people when they got into a circle for prayer.

Channel 9’s Ken Lemon spoke with the relatives of two victims, who said that after a decade, they are choosing to focus on hope.

Healing & Hope: Charleston, 10 years later

• ‘A powerful legacy’: Mother Emanuel’s impact on Charleston stretches from past to present
• ‘Unthinkable’: The attack on Mother Emanuel left behind hurt, anger
• ‘Evil, pure evil’: Hatred, forgiveness, and honoring the victims of the Charleston church attack

Kaylin Doctor-Stancil lived through the kind of hate that’s hard to escape.

While she currently lives in Rock Hill, in 2015 her mother, DePayne Middleton-Doctor, was a minister at Emanuel AME Church. She was one of the nine killed by a shooter fueled by racial hatred.

“I couldn’t shake the feeling of her coming home every night, but knowing that she wasn’t,” said Doctor-Stancil.

The shooter wanted to spread hate by taking the lives of Black worshippers, including Charlotte City Councilman Malcolm Graham’s sister, Cynthia Hurd.

“He didn’t do anything other than uplift those same individuals, right?” Graham. “The Charleston County Council had an emergency meeting where they renamed the library after Cynthia. Two days after the shooting, the College of Charleston renamed its highest academic scholarship after Cynthia.”

Graham told Channel 9 that the shooter showed the need for more dialogue about race and healing to keep this from happening again.

“We’ve got to find a way to have these conversations create an environment where tension can exist and work for change,” Graham expressed.

The shooter was later identified as Dylan Roof. He currently faces the death penalty.

VIDEO: ‘A powerful legacy’: Mother Emanuel’s impact on Charleston stretches from past to present

‘A powerful legacy’: Mother Emanuel’s impact on Charleston stretches from past to present

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