texas

North Texas AME Churches Resist Fear After Charleston Murders

North Texas African Methodist Episcopal Church leaders sent condolences and support Thursday to the families of Charleston, South Carolina AME murder victims, but planned no special changes for their own safety.

Nine people were killed Wednesday night during a Bible study session at Emanuel AME in Charleston, including the church pastor who was also a South Carolina State Senator.

Suspect Dylan Storm Roof, 21, was arrested Thursday in North Carolina.

The Charleston police chief called the murders a "hate crime."

Bishop Vashti McKenzie, leader of the AME Church for the State of Texas, led a noon prayer service in Dallas Thursday for healing in response to the Charleston shootings.

“We do have an underbelly of racism and classism and sexism that happens in America and we just have to do something about it,” she said. “That means we find our common ground. Underneath it all there’s red blood.”

Bishop McKenzie said Charleston victim Ethel Lance, 70, has Texas AME church relatives who request privacy in their time of grief.

McKenzie recommended no special security precautions for Texas churches after the Charleston attack.

“We will praise God. We will continue our service ministry. We will continue to be a positive influence in the communities where the AME church is,” McKenzie said.

A special evening service was also held at St. Paul AME Church on Metropolitan Avenue in Dallas.

"We recognize your pain and we are with you," said Richie Butler, Senior Pastor at St. Paul. "And we are praying for you and we will continue to stand beside you during this dark hour."

“The place where people think they are secure, [a] place where they feel that they are comfortable being is in a church,” St. Paul Pastor Juan Tolliver said. “And for it to happen in a church was very disturbing to me, very troubling.”

But Tolliver said St. Paul doors remain open to all and faith will protect his church.

“If you come to worship God, you are welcome in the House of God,” Tolliver said. “And we are not going to have guards or metal detectors at our doors because this is the House of God and we believe by faith that God will protect us and keep us in his House.”

NBC 5's Johnny Archer contributed to this report.

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