Charleston Emanuel AME Church in which nine parishioners were shot dead by Dylann Storm Roof on June 17 is to reopen for services on Sunday, June 21.
Members of South Carolina’s African-American church met again on June 20 in the room where their friends died earlier this week.
Many more people are expected to attend the service at 09:00 AM on Sunday.
Meanwhile, police are investigating an online post, possibly by gunman Dylann Roof, that appears to outline his motivation for the attack.
One of those who attended Saturday’s meeting, Harold Washington, said the church’s doors would be open to all on Sunday.
“We’re gonna have people come by that we’ve never seen before and will probably never see again, and that’s OK,” Harold Washington said.
“It’s a church of the Lord – you don’t turn nobody down.”
Survivors say Dylann Roof spent close to an hour attending a church service on June 17 before opening fire.
Crowds gathered outside the historic church on Saturday to hear pastors from across the US lead prayers. Many travelled hundreds of miles from across the country to pay their respects.
A rally was also held in Charleston by the Black Lives Matter movement, which began after the 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman over the killing of an unarmed African-American teenager, Trayvon Martin.
In South Carolina’s capital, Columbia, protests took place to demand the removal of the Confederate flag from the capitol building.
The flag was a symbol used by southern states in the civil war, when they tried to break away to prevent the abolition of slavery.
It is viewed by many as a sign of the white supremacy advocated by those states at the time.
The protest followed President Barack Obama’s remark that the flag belonged “in a museum”.
Protesters chanted “Take it down” and sang We Shall Overcome, an anthem of the black civil rights movement.
On June 19, South Carolina’s Republican state representative Doug Brannon told MSNBC that he planned to introduce legislation to remove the Confederate flag.
On June 20, images emerged on a website showing Dylann Roof posing with the Confederate flag. In others, he is seen burning the US flag and visiting a former slave plantation.
A collection of images of Charleston church gunman Dylann Roof posing with a gun have surfaced online.
Dylann Storm Roof, 21, shot dead nine people at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina on Wednesday, June 17.
The pictures discovered on a website also show Dylann Roof burning the US flag and visiting a slave plantation.
In one image Dylann Roof is shown staring down the camera while sitting on a chair in camouflage trousers holding a gun.
It is unclear who posted the images on the site, which was found on June 20.
The website with a white supemacist manifesto was taken offline on the same day shortly after it was discovered. Internet records suggest its domain was registered in February to a Dylann Roof in Eastover, South Carolina, but it is unclear who was behind it.
It is not clear who wrote the words and who took the pictures, but the manifesto appears to trace the evolution of the author’s racist worldview and concludes with a section labeled “An Explanation”.
The manifesot reads: “I have no choice. I am not in the position to, alone, go into the ghetto and fight. I chose Charleston because it is most historic city in my state, and at one time had the highest ratio of blacks to Whites in the country. We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the internet. Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me.”
Data from the images show many of them were taken in April and May 2015.
Many of the photographs show Dylann Roof posing with the Confederate flag, a symbol used in the US south during the civil war when southern states tried to break away to prevent the abolition of slavery.
It is viewed by many as symbolizing the white supremacy advocated by those states at the time.
The website was discovered by two Twitter users who used a tool to find any domain names registered to Dylann Roof.
Dylan Roof was arrested on June 18 and charged with the murders of nine African-Americans at the Emanuel African Methodist Church in downtown Charleston.
Police said Dylann Roof spent an hour sitting with parishioners inside the church before opening fire on them.
Crowds gathered outside the historic church on June 20 to hear pastors from across the US lead prayers.
The Emanuel AME Church is due to reopen on Sunday, June 21, for a service at 09:00 local time.
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