NATCHEZ — The tragic murders of nine parishioners of the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston during a Bible study Wednesday night has pastors of Natchez congregations rethinking church security.

The Rev. Melvin White, pastor of Pilgrim Baptist Church in Natchez, said his church board is considering the installation of surveillance cameras inside and outside the church, located at 117 Pilgrim Blvd., Natchez.

“It was a blessing that that church had surveillance cameras, not only outside but inside,” he said. “We’re reconsidering that. We may take a look at installing cameras that show who is coming in and out of the sanctuary.”

White said on Sunday, his congregation would remember the victims of the Charleston Emanuel AME shooting.

“We are in prayer for the city of Charleston. We are going to do a moment of silence, as well as an altar prayer on behalf of victims, in our Father’s Day service on Sunday,” he said. “It was a tragedy. My heart went out to the victims and to the victims’ families and the pastor. I was appreciative to see how the community came together in solidary. It shows that evil is ever present among us. We have to be very prayerful.”White said he has never worried that such an event could occur at his church, “even though evil has crossed our paths before.”

Emanuel AME in Charleston is the oldest African Methodist Episcopal Church in the South. The Rev. Birdon Mitchell Jr. is pastor of Zion Chapel AME Church in Natchez, the city’s largest AME congregation and one of its most historic churches, founded in 1958.

His church held a prayer vigil Thursday at noon for the victims of the Charleston shooting.

“I was shocked, first of all, that something like that is still going on,” Mitchell said. “I was hurt because those people are connected to us through the African Methodist Episcopal Church. We have common contact with those ministers through the various caucuses. I also felt outrage, really, to know that people still feel like that today. This young man sat with them through Bible study for an hour, and then got up and took their lives.”

Mitchell said his church would certainly rethink church security.

“This will cause some of us to look twice at visitors that come in,” Mitchell said. “Our church receives visitors from across the world — Australia, Sweden, France. We welcome them in. It will make people kind of think twice now, after this church welcomed this young man in.” He said Zion Chapel AME’s congregation has adopted the saying, “where friends meet friends and sinners meet Christ.”

“That’s the way we feel about every person who comes through our doors. But this will make you think, and be very cautious about who will come through our doors in the future,” Mitchell said.

For the family and friends left behind in this tragedy, healing won’t begin until justice is served, he said.

“A lot will have to take place for healing,” Mitchell said. “I have been keeping up with all the information coming across CNN — the arrest of the young man, the talk about South Carolina and the talk about healing. A lot still has to take place before healing can take place.

“The mindset of people many times is to avoid race issues. You can look at even several comments about the flag in South Carolina,” he said. The Confederate battle flag is still flown daily at the South Carolina state capitol.

“People have to look at how we feel as African Americans in Southern states, even in the state of Mississippi. They look at the flag as a sign of their heritage. We look at it in a different way. We look at what was done under that flag. It makes us think about the people who want to keep us enslaved and things like that. These are things we need to look at and deal with.

“I’m not absolutely sure that we can heal at this moment,” Mitchell said. “They were talking about the young man confessing to murder. I know he has to go through due process, but in many cases, I feel that people begin to heal from crimes like this when they see justice has been done with the individual who committed these horrific crimes. Many of the family and friends of the nine people who were killed or murdered won’t start healing until they see justice prevail in this case.”

The Rev. Jeff Brewer, pastor of Parkway Baptist Church in Natchez, was a seminary student in Fort Worth, Texas, when Larry Gene Ashbrook walked into a youth rally at Wedgwood Baptist Church on Sept. 15, 1999.  Ashbrook opened fire, killing seven and wounding seven others before killing himself. “He walked into the back of the church with an automatic weapon and unloaded,” Brewer said. “He killed a lot of people and injured a lot. It had a huge effect on the Fort Worth community.” Brewer thinks something positive can come from the Charleston tragedy, and has been pleased by the reaction of the white community there.

“I guess the thing that I’ve taken from this is, if this happened 50 or so years ago — a white man walking into a black church and killing people — it may have been just a passing story. To know people (in the white community) are offended and devasted, that’s the thing that I like,” Brewer said. “To see the white community, in general, rallying around the situation and herding with that church, for me being from the Deep South, that’s an encouraging thing, even though it’s a tragic event.

“When my dad grew up, we didn’t have black people over. We didn’t have black friends. Today, we think nothing of that. I guess that’s a positive in the midst of a horrible negative.”