COLUMBIA, S.C. — A few hundred people gathered in Finlay Park Saturday night to pray for a many things: our nation, our community, politicians, protesters and unity.
The event organized by the Richland County Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance brought the group out to worship together.
The crowd prayed together, sang together, clapped together and praised together as 10 different clergy members led the group in worship.
“This is not a one way prayer this is us praying together as believers," Taylor Shytle of Elevation Church in Columbia said during his address.
“I’m so thankful, this is awesome," Shytle's wife Nikki Shytle says, "This is what we’ve been praying for. For unity for people to come together. And I mean this is just exciting! I think God unites us all. You know, like his blood… it unites us all.”
Some of the protesters from the State House marched to the event towards the end where they joined in the prayer and praise.
Jasmine Fillmore came out to support her pastor Travis Green of Forward City Church, “We kind of just stuck around because they have the protest going on and we support Black Lives Matter movement so we decided to stick around a little longer just to make sure they feel like their voices are heard.”
“I cried, no lie, I really did cry," Zenia Sanders, a protester who marched to the event says, "It's emotional because more so we’re not crying because we’re afraid of the police. We’re crying because we’re black. We’ve been hurt for decades, you know what I’m saying? We’ve been feeling this for decades and we are tired.”
Protesters, community leaders, church members and more joined together in a much different scene from last Saturday’s events.
“We really just came out just to praise God," Fillmore tells News19, "to show people that you don’t have to just take action and pray, but you can do both. So that’s why we’re here. That’s why we’re standing here.”