President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will travel to Charleston, SC on Friday to memorialize the victims of last weeks shooting in a historic black church.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest announced Monday that the president and vice president will attend the funeral mass of Rev. Clementa Pinckney where Mr. Obama is expected to deliver a eulogy. First Lady Michelle Obama is expected to travel to Charleston as well.

Rev. Pinckney and eight other people were killed Wednesday in a shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the oldest black churches in the United States. Rev. Pinckney also served in the South Carolina Senate.

The alleged shooter, Dylann Roof, purportedly wrote an online manifesto describing his dislike of black Americans and linked the attacks to racial animus.

Mr. Roof, 21, has also been photographed with the Confederate flag, as well as the national symbols of the unrecognized African state Rhodesia. He stands charged with nine counts of murder, as well as firearms charges.

In an interview this week, Mr. Obama said that racial progress has been undeniable in the last 50 years but that “societies don’t overnight completely erase everything that happened 200 to 300 years prior.

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