By Mark Wolf

UPDATE

President Barack Obama eulogized South Carolina Senator Clementa Pinckey during today's funeral service at the College of Charleston, concluding by leading the crowd in singing "Amazing Grace."

EARLIER

South Carolina Senator Clementa Pinckney spent the last day of his life securing more foster-care funding at a state budget hearing and then leading a prayer group at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.

Senator Pinckney was among nine people slain Wednesday night when a gunman opened fire on the prayer group. The senator had been the church’s pastor since 2010. He was 41 and is survived by his wife and their two children.

Nina Williams-Mbengue, a program director in NCSL’s Children and Families Program, recalls how Senator Pinckney, spoke about issues they both cared about during a meeting several years ago.

“He was a commanding figure but very soft-spoken,” she said.

“We were talking about issues relating to relatives and grandparents caring for children and keeping them from entering the foster care system. He spoke very thoughtfully about the issues and was talking about what was going on in his state.”

He was 23 in 1996 when he became the youngest black elected to the South Carolina General Assembly and the body’s youngest member of any race.

In the aftermath of the shooting of Walter Scott in Charleston, Pinckney gave an impassioned speech on the Senate floor: “Today, the nation looks at South Carolina and is looking at us to see if we will rise to be the body and to be the state that we really say that we are,” Pinckney said back then.

During a 2013 speech he talked of freedom and the history of the church he pastored.

Tributes abounded as word spread of his death. A colleague, state Senator Marlon Kimpson (D-Charleston), called Pinckney "the moral conscience of the General Assembly."

Mark Wolf is an editor in NCSL's Digital Communications Program.

Email Mark

EARLIER

South Carolina Senator Clementa Pinckney spent the last day of his life securing more foster-care funding at a state budget hearing and then leading a prayer group at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.

Senator Pinckney was among nine people slain Wednesday night when a gunman opened fire on the prayer group. The senator had been the church’s pastor since 2010. He was 41 and is survived by his wife and their two children.

Nina Williams-Mbengue, a program director in NCSL’s Children and Families Program, recalls how Senator Pinckney, spoke about issues they both cared about during a meeting several years ago.

“He was a commanding figure but very soft-spoken,” she said.

“We were talking about issues relating to relatives and grandparents caring for children and keeping them from entering the foster care system. He spoke very thoughtfully about the issues and was talking about what was going on in his state.”

He was 23 in 1996 when he became the youngest black elected to the South Carolina General Assembly and the body’s youngest member of any race.

In the aftermath of the shooting of Walter Scott in Charleston, Pinckney gave an impassioned speech on the Senate floor: “Today, the nation looks at South Carolina and is looking at us to see if we will rise to be the body and to be the state that we really say that we are,” Pinckney said back then.

During a 2013 speech he talked of freedom and the history of the church he pastored.

Tributes abounded as word spread of his death. A colleague, state Senator Marlon Kimpson (D-Charleston), called Pinckney "the moral conscience of the General Assembly."

Mark Wolf is an editor in NCSL's Digital Communications Program.

Email Mark