In Charleston, Hands Held Together by Love Span Bridge to Combat Hate

As many as twenty thousand people came together on a bridge in Charleston, South Carolina on Sunday evening, marching in the name of love and unity against the racist violence that took the lives of nine people last week in a historic black church.

Estimates put the number of people between 15,000 and 20,000—significantly more than the 3,000 or so originally expected—who walked across the Arthur Ravenel Bridge that spans the Cooper River and connects the city of Charleston to the suburb of Mount Pleasant. Individuals and families marched while people embraced, sang songs, and held signs expressing their love for community and one another.

According to the Huffington Post, the crowd of people stretched “more than two miles from the town of Mount Pleasant to the city of Charleston. Observers on the bridge, and thousands more at the base, joined hands to create a ‘unity chain,’ then held a moment of silence that lasted five minutes in honor of the fallen.” As the Associated Press recounts, when the marchers from each side met in the middle of bridge, there was clapping and singing of Civil Rights-era song, “This little light of mine.”

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