President Obama travels to Charleston, South Carolina, on Friday to

deliver the eulogy for Reverend Clementa Pinckney, the pastor of

Emanuel AME church who was gunned down last week along with eight
others, amid intense speculation over whether he will use such a sensitive
moment further to articulate his views on race.
The president will make his funeral oration at TD arena at the College of
Charleston, in front of more than 5,000 people including relatives and
friends of the victims as well as African American, church and local
political leaders. He will be joined by the first lady, Michelle Obama, and
Vice-President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill.
It will be one of the most closely scrutinized engagements of Obamas six
years in office. With the aftershocks of the gun rampage by an avowed
white supremacist still thundering across the deep south, the presidents
main focus will be to celebrate the life of a much-loved pastor whom
Obama himself knew well.
But he also faces the much more delicate task of offering the nation some
kind of moral way forward as it continues to struggle to understand more
than a week after the event an act of undiluted racial hatred. State capitals
across the south not just Columbia, South Carolina, where the
Confederate flag still flies high have been racked with soul-searching
since the shooting spree on 17 June, much of it directed towards enduring
public symbols of the regions slave-owningsecessionist past.

The decision to forgive is rooted

in faith. The desire to forget is
rooted in racism
Anthea Butler
Read more

In his remarks so far on the Charleston massacre, Obama has tended to

emphasize his frustration with Americas lax gun laws which, as he put it
the day after the shootings, has forced him to make statements like this
too many times. He also made reference in that speech to the Emanuel

AME church, the scene of the carnage, as a place of worship founded by

African Americans seeking an end to slavery.
But his remarks in public over the past nine days have been restrained,
muted almost, in regard to the overt racial nature of the attack. The past
nine days have been in keeping with the cautious stance that Americas
first black president has consistently adopted when talking directly about
the countrys legacy of racial strife.
Whatever the extent of his comments on race on Friday, it is certain that
his eulogy will address the many achievements of its subject. The
president will have rich material to work with the aftermath of last
weeks massacre has been marked by an outpouring of affection and
praise for the 41-year-old Pinckney in both his public roles, as pastor and
as state senator.
On Wednesday several thousand mourners filed past Pinckneys open
coffin at the South Carolina state house to pay their respects to a man
equally at ease in a place of worship as on the floor of the legislature. On
Thursday night a wake was held at his church, a place of worship that was
so integral to Charlestons African American community over so many
years that it became known as Mother Emanuel.
Obama forged his friendship with Pinckney during his first presidential
run in 2008, in which South Carolina played a key role as a turning point
in the fierce battle for the Democratic nomination between the then US
senator for Illinois and Hillary Clinton. Even then, the contest was notable
for its racial undertones.
How much further the president chooses to go in the course of his eulogy
into the snake pit of modern American race relations remains to be seen.
There are signs that as he approaches the end of his term in the White
House he is feeling liberated enough to speak more openly just this
week he used the N-word in a podcast, stating that the nation has yet to be
cured of racism.
He has also indicated that his post-presidency plan is to try to help young
black American men cope with the many hurdles that stand in their way.
In the wake of the spate of recent unrest over police behavior towards
black citizens in cities such as Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, the

subject of race is clearly at the front of Obamas mind, though only rarely
does he give the nation a glimpse of his thinking.