Nine dead in SC church shooting

(Vatican Radio) Nine people have been killed in an attack on an historic black church in South Carolina.

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Police say a white man in his 20s is being sought in connection with the shooting, which took place in the city of Charleston.

The shooter killed eight of his victims inside the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on Thursday evening. The ninth confirmed victim did not die at the scene.

The church itself is a piece of American history: one of its founders, Denmark Vesey, was also in the leadership of a planned salve revolt in 1822, more than 40 years before the Emancipation Proclamation took effect during the Civil War and was followed later by the constitutional abolition of slavery.

The organizers of the revolt were captured before they could enact their plan, and were put to death.