NEWS STORY: Another black church burns on eve of Washington meetings

c. 1996 Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS)-As African-American church leaders prepared to meet with federal law-enforcement officials, yet another black church building in the South burned Thursday, heightening concern that a conspiracy may be at work in a series of nearly 30 church burnings since early 1995. The nighttime fire at an historic Presbyterian sanctuary […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)-As African-American church leaders prepared to meet with federal law-enforcement officials, yet another black church building in the South burned Thursday, heightening concern that a conspiracy may be at work in a series of nearly 30 church burnings since early 1995.

The nighttime fire at an historic Presbyterian sanctuary in Charlotte, N.C., followed Monday’s burning of a rural Baptist church in Hale County, Ala.


President Clinton, in a news conference today (June 7), said he would discuss the spate of church arsons in the South in his weekly radio address Saturday.”We are working very hard to get to the bottom of this,”he said.

The Rev. Mac Charles Jones, associate for racial justice at the National Council of Churches, said that while his organization is trying to prevent additional fires, further federal attention is needed. Already, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) are investigating the arsons.”This thing is escalating, and that’s the reason there’s the need for this massive, massive attention given by not only federal officials and local officials and regional officials but people in general,”Jones said in an interview.”There’s got to be a signal given from communities saying, `This will not continue.'” Since 1990, there have been about 50 cases involving burned or desecrated houses of worship, most of them black, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The latest fire, at an unused sanctuary of Matthews-Murkland Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, is considered suspicious by authorities because of the rash of fires throughout the South. The 175-member congregation meets in a new building on the same grounds, but had hoped to renovate the 93-year-old building as a wedding chapel, the Associated Press reported.

The National Council of Churches, which represents 33 Protestant and Orthodox denominations, helped arrange meetings Sunday and Monday (June 9-10) between representatives of about 30 of the burned churches and federal officials. The church leaders are expected to meet with Attorney General Janet Reno, who oversees the FBI, Treasury Secretary Richard Rubin, who oversees the ATF, and members of Congress.

An ecumenical service is set for Sunday evening at this city’s Pleasant Lane Baptist Church to support the pastors of the burned churches. Jones expects some federal officials to attend. Representatives of a variety of religious denominations and civil rights organizations also have been invited.

Asked about Clinton’s comments Friday, Jones said,”I think it’s a first step. What we have called for and said over and over is that from the highest positions in this land, this has got to be addressed.” Jones said the intent of the National Council of Churches’ campaign is to highlight not only the fires but”the whole issue of racism and white supremacist notions that spawn it.” Some church leaders have criticized investigators for what they believe has been intense scrutiny of their congregations rather than possible outside perpetrators of the fires.

Jones said he hopes the meetings will prompt”an aggressive investigation at all levels that goes at the ones who did it rather than the pastors and congregations themselves.” For many of the Southern church leaders, the fires are a reminder of violence during the civil rights era of the 1960s, when churches were burned to intimidate African-Americans. Those memories prompt a certain mistrust of government agencies among many blacks.


Civil rights leaders, voicing continuing suspicions of racism within the federal investigatory effort, have noted that two ATF agents who were investigating black Southern church fires had attended so-called”Good Ol’ Boy Roundups”where racist acts are alleged to have occurred. The two agents were later removed from the fire investigations.

The Justice Department has said that 17 of the approximately 50 cases have been resolved and racism was proven as the motive for some of the fires. But while federal officials have continued to say they have not found any evidence of an organized conspiracy in the arsons, some church leaders are not convinced.

The National Council of Churches submitted testimony to a recent House Judiciary Committee hearing pointing out that its investigations”uncovered striking similarities”in the arsons, including the use of Molotov cocktails and the spray-painting of racist graffiti.

The council has been working with the Center for Democratic Renewal -an Atlanta-based group that monitors hate crimes-and the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based group that said it plans to file civil lawsuits against perpetrators of the crimes.

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