AFP,CHARLESTON: The historic black South Carolina church where a white gunman murdered nine African Americans held its first service since the massacre on Sunday, an emotional gathering celebrating the lives of those slain. Several hundred congregants, some tearful, packed the Emanuel African American Episcopal Church for a service led by visiting clergy because the congregation's pastor was among those killed by a suspected young white supremacist. The service offered still-grieving Charleston -- in another era, the American capital of the transatlantic slave trade -- a chance to mark what many argued was its triumph in thwarting the shooter's reported aim to foment racial hatred.