UPDATE @ 9:40 p.m.: Charleston, South Carolina, resident Greg Vick, who is doing contract work at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, said he felt the need to attend Monday night's prayer vigil and town hall meeting at the Greater Allen African Methodist Episcopal Church.
“In this time, you can’t get enough God,” Vick told News Center 7’s Layron Livingston. Vick, who has lived in Charleston the past 13 years, said he heard about Monday night’s event on the news and has been attending many churches since the massacre — including listening to on online Saturday and attending one in Beavercreek on Sunday.
Vick lives in downtown Charleston, about a mile from Mother Emanuel AME Church, and has neighbors who attend that church. They were there for that prayer meeting on the fateful night of June 17. They left at 8:30 p.m.
“They could’ve been there,” he said.
Vick said he thinks it’s great that “we’re finally getting it [open discussion about racism and talk about bringing down the Confederate battle flag] out into the open.”
He and his wife have an adopted daughter who is “a brown girl.”
“I’ve had people come up to me and literally tell me they’re disgusted that we have a black daughter. She’s my daughter. I love her with all my heart,” Vick said, noting aloud that people need to get rid of the prejudices.
“We are one,” he said. Vick said he is proud of his city and the way they have come through the tragedy.
“I think the flag needs to come down. You have to remember what it symbolizes… It was there at a time when we were at a very dark period in our American history.” The flag needs to go into a museum, he said.
“I can’t wait to get home and hug my neighbor to tell her I love her,” he said.
INITIAL REPORT
A prayer service for the victims of the South Carolina AME church massacre is happening tonight at Greater Allen AME Church, 1620 W. Fifth St., near Euclid Avenue.
The service, which began at 6 p.m., is to allow the Dayton-area to show support for those affected by the shootings at the Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston on June 17.
“We’re having it to let the people in South Carolina and members of Mother Emmanuel and the families of the victims to know that we love them and that we’re praying for them. And that we’re embracing them in this hour,” said Bishop Richard Cox, president of the Dayton Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
“We want to express a word of hope and to let them know that heaven has a remedy for earth’s tragedies,” he said.
He hopes the vigil will bring the entire Dayton community together.
“We’re inviting the entire Dayton community, regardless of race or color, creed or religion, to meet us there to let (those in South Carolina) know that we care and that we’re lifting them up in prayer and that they have our sympathy,” Cox said. “It’s a humanitarian thing to do. It’s a thing to let people know that we can rise above this tragedy and rise above this horrific incident.”