Anonymous donors create $3M scholarship in Clementa Pinckney's name

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) -- An anonymous group has donated more than $3 million to the Rev. Clementa Pinckney scholarship fund, Charleston Mayor Joe Riley announced Thursday.

Interest from the donation will fund scholarships for countless children for years to come in the name of Pinckney, a South Carolina state senator and pastor of the Emanuel AME Church who was gunned down with eight of his parishioners during a Bible study{}on June 17.{}

The fund will provide college and advanced degree scholarships for members of the extended Mother Emanuel AME Church community, the city said.

"This is a permanent fund that will grow in size and countless people will get a college education," Riley said.{}"They will know their scholarship is in the name of Rev. Clementa Pinckney. And they will know that scholarship is available because this community and the country responded with love."

Riley said after the shootings he was contacted by Henry Lewis Gates, Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University, who had received calls from multiple people looking to help the victims and their families anonymously. Riley said Gates suggested they do it through education.

Riley said he doesn't know how many people contributed but said none of them live in South Carolina and most are of a different race than the victims. He read this statement from the donors:

"We do not pretend to understand the pain caused by this unimaginable tragedy," the statement says. "We simply want members of the Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church community to know that the burdens of perseverance and empathy, which they have demonstrated with such dignity, do not fall exclusively on their shoulders. We want them to know that others, most of whom do not share their race or religion, who do not come from South Carolina, abhor the injustices from which they have suffered and admire the ways the African-American community has enriched our nation. We honor Reverend Pinckney who so profoundly embodied the values that bind us together as Americans."

Riley said this is just another example of how the shooter sought to divide the country but only managed to bring it closer.

"That evil man was seeking to spread his feelings of division and racial hate," Riley said.{}"And of course we all know his actions created a very opposite result. People in this community and our country came together."

The Rev. Norvel Goff said the community has shown that it's not what happens to a community but how it reacts.

"What a tremendous opportunity to show the world once more and again that goodness of heart overtakes the world and how we show the world{}how we react to tragedy," Goff said.{}

Goff said Charleston set an example for the entire world.

"We didn't ask for it. It's a horrific situation. It was a terrorist act, racist, bigotry.. all the above," Goff said. "But through it all we realize a lesson is not what has happened totallly but how we respond. And as a community we have responded in a very positive way that now ripples throughout this nation if not the world." {}

Since the tragedy, donations have been piling in. The Mother Emanuel Hope Fund, created to help the families, has raised $1.2 million as of Wednesday, Riley said.{}

"Pinckney was many things," Riley said. "He was committed to a quality education for everyone. This is a fitting way to forever remember the name of Rev. Pinckney."

Anyone wishing to make tax-deductible contributions to the scholarship can send it to the Reverend{}Pinckney Scholarship Fund,{}c/o The Mayor's Office, City of Charleston Post Office Box 304, Charleston, SC 29402.{}Contributions may also be made online at:{}http://www.pinckneyfund.org.