Anonymous Donors Contribute $3M to Scholarship Fund for Slain Charleston Pastor

Anonymous donors have reportedly contributed $3 million to a scholarship fund set up in honor of the nine victims recently killed in a shooting massacre at the Charleston Emanuel A.M.E. church in June.

Charleston's Mayor Joe Riley announced this week that the donated funds will go toward a new scholarship being created in the name of Reverend Clementa Pinckney, the pastor of the A.M.E. church who was killed during the June 18 massacre.

"A group of people who want no credit, they want to be completely anonymous, have so far raised $3 million to endow the Reverend Pinckney Scholarship Fund," Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley Jr. said in a statement this week.

Pinckney, who also served as senator of South Carolina before his death, was reportedly dedicated to educational opportunities for all classes of people.

Mayor Riley told WSOC-TV that the scholarship in his name would be fitting for his life's dedication to education.

"Is the most fitting way to forever preserve the name of Rev. Pinckney at a cause he believed so strongly," Riley said.

The Rev. Dr. Norvel Goff, presiding elder at the church, described the scholarship fund as an "opportunity" to show the world that good overcomes evil.

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

"We didn't ask for it. It was a horrific situation. It was a terrorist act. It was racist. It was bigotry -- all of the above. But through it all, we realize a lesson: It's not what has happened, truly, but how we respond," Goff added.