On the evening of June 17, a mass shooting took place at Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. Nine people were killed and a tenth person was shot and injured.

Dyalnn Roof, 21, was arrested the following Thursday, where he confessed to the authorities that he committed the mass murder at the church in South Carolina. According to The Huffington Post, Friday morning Roof was charged with nine counts of homicide and possession of a firearm during commission of a violent event.

What happened in Charleston has been called a hate crime. According to CNN, when Roof was asked why he committed these crimes he responded, “to start a race war.”

All too often mass shootings headline newspapers and each time our nation is shaken. Families mourn, citizens become outraged,  communities protest, and government officials scramble to pick up the pieces, yet nothing changes.

One thing that as a nation we can do to change is to take note from the families of the nine victims. Friday afternoon five relatives from different victim’s families appeared at Roof’s hearing, where they shared different messages with him, each conveying the same thing: that they forgive him.

“I forgive you,” Nadine Collier, the daughter of 70-year-old Ethel Lance, said at the hearing. “You took something very precious from me. I will never talk to her again. I will never, ever hold her again. But I forgive you. And have mercy on your soul.”

These families have come together to do something that we as a nation don’t see often, instead of responding to these hateful crimes with more hate, they went above and beyond to respond with love.

“Although my grandfather and the other victims died at the hands of hate, this is proof, everyone’s plea for your soul, is proof that they lived in love and their legacies will live in love,” said Wanda Simmons, granddaughter of Daniel Simmons at the hearing. “So hate won’t win. And I just want to thank the court for making sure that hate doesn’t win.”

To the families of Cynthia Hurd, 54; Susie Jackson, 87; Ethel Lance, 70; Reverend Depayne Middleton-Doctor, 49; Honorary Reverend Clementa Pinckney, 41; Tywanza Zanders, 26; Reverend Daniel Simmons Senior, 74; Reverend Sharonda Singleton, 45; and Myra Thompson, 59; thank you for reminding the nation that in tragedy there is still light.