Image Bible study at the nearby Morris Brown A.M.E. Church. Credit... Travis Dove for The New York Times

“Part of the problem why we continue to visit these moments is because there is of a lack of honesty about how we got here,” the Rev. Michael A. Walrond Jr., the pastor at First Corinthian Baptist Church in Harlem, told his congregation on Sunday morning. “Racism, bigotry, prejudice and hatred are elements woven into the fabric of this country. There can be no healing in this land if we are not honest about who we are.”

Some church leaders said they already saw steps toward healing.

At Hebron Zion Presbyterian Church on Johns Island, west of Charleston, several white visitors were among the largely black congregation on Sunday. The Rev. McKinley Washington Jr., the church’s pastor, said it was unusual, though not extraordinary, to look out from his pulpit and see white faces.

“There’s a consciousness around the country,” he said. “I think they were, not embarrassed, but feel responsible. This was a serious wake-up call for America, but especially for white people.”

When the white congregants of Citadel Square Baptist Church gathered for their Sunday worship service, the church program listed the names of the nine black church members who had been slain next door.

In 1995, the Southern Baptist Convention, of which Citadel Baptist is affiliated, issued a “Resolution on Racial Reconciliation” on its 150th anniversary. The document said Southern Baptists’ relationship with blacks had been “hindered from the beginning by the role that slavery played” in the group’s formation, and acknowledged that many Southern Baptists had defended slavery and failed to support civil rights.

At the end of the service at Citadel Baptist, members walked just steps away and placed purple daisies on the steps of Emanuel as a show of love and support.