The burning and bombing of Black churches (1822- ) has a long history in the US. It has sometimes been used as an instrument of White racist terror. There have been waves of church burnings:
- after the Civil War,
- during the civil rights movement,
- the 1990s and,
- just last week.
Last week:
- June 21st 2015 – College Hill Seventh Day Adventist in Knoxville, Tennessee
- June 23rd 2015 – God’s Power Church of Christ in Macon Georgia
- June 23rd 2015 – Fruitland Presbyterian Church in Gibson County, Tennessee
- June 24th 2015 – Briar Creek Road Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina
- June 26th 2015 – Glover Baptist Church in Warrenville, South Carolina
- June 26th 2015 – Greater Miracle Temple Apostolic Holiness Church in Tallahassee, Florida
Of these, two seem to be an accident while at least three seem to be arson. No one was hurt – they mostly took place in the middle of the night.
For comparison, during this same period only one fire took place at a non-Black church: the College Heights Baptist Church in Elyria, Ohio.
The authorities have not (yet) ruled any of these a hate crime. That is generally hard to prove – mainly because most arsonists are never caught. There are no suspects so far in last week’s arsons.
Given the timing – just after the Charleston massacre and during a week in which there were calls to take down the Confederate battle flag at the South Carolina capitol – it seems likely that some were hate crimes.
Last November Michael Brown’s father’s church was burned.
The first recorded Black church burning was in 1822: the Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina – the very church that was the scene of the Charleston Massacre.
After the Civil War and during the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, the Klan and other Whites bombed and burned Black churches as acts of terrorism. Black churches during these periods were staging grounds for organizing Blacks to demand equal rights.
According to civil rights historian Taylor Branch, during the 1950s and 1960s Black churches were being bombed almost every week. In Mississippi during the Freedom Summer of 1964, churches were burned almost every other day.
The most infamous case was in 1963: the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birminghma, Alabama, which left four Black girls dead.
In the 1990s there was another wave of Black church burnings. Some White churches were burned too, but most were Black, even though the US is only 13% Black.
At that time Black churches were not a hotbed of protest for equal rights. Many of those burned had rarely organized anything more than a church supper.
Of those arsonists who were caught, tried and found guilty, only 23% were found guilty of a hate crime. Because of plea bargains and the difficulty in proving hate, the actual number was probably higher. Few, though, belonged to hate groups.
The most infamous church arsonist of the 1990s was Jay Scott Ballinger. In 1998 and 1999 he burned 50 churches across the South and in the Midwest. He was part of – a satanic cult that burned down churches.
– Abagond, 2015.
Update (July 1st): Last night another Black church was burned, the Mount Zion AME Church in Greeleyville, South Carolina. This very same church was burned by the Klan in 1995.
Update (October 24th): Since October 8th at least five Black churches and one mixed church have been burned, all of them not far from Ferguson.
Sources: Especially The Atlantic (2015), Washington Post (2015), Department of Justice (1998), Baltimore Sun (1996), Washington Post (1996).
See also:
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I remember the horrific day when the late NFL great Reggie White’s church was burned to the ground by White supremacists in the 1996.
Reggie White was an associated pastor at his evangelical church in the so-called inner-city area of Knoxville, Tennessee. With a congregation of about 450, the church focused on community development (something most Whites say Blacks are incapable of doing). Members of the church and community rebuilt drug-abandoned houses for resale to low-income people, and also built homes that low-income people could afford. The church also ran an AM radio station with religious programming, and created a daycare for working parents. White donated $1 million to the project, and in 1994 the church opened an investment bank, which made loans to people who couldn’t qualify for traditional bank loans. The investment bank ran seminars in job skills and financial planning, and provided credit to small-business owners. White told members of the mainstream media, which I believe he should not have told them, that the church’s goal was to “get people off welfare and help them become tax-paying citizens.”
On January 8, 1996, White’s church was burned to the ground. A White supremacist(s) had placed kerosene, gunpowder, and several Molotov cocktails in the church, lit them, and fled, leaving racist graffiti behind. The burning angered Reggie White. The church burning got him to speak on television, radio, and in print about continual racism against Blacks. After the burning, White’s church moved to a nearby high school auditorium. By the summer of that year, White and his congregation were given donations of about $250,000 to help the church rebuild.
Atrocities, like in the case of Reggie White’s church, tells us that whenever members in the Black community try to do something constructive and uplifting they’re always met by White supremacy (extreme, institutional or otherwise) – just like in the cases of the Green Business District in Tulsa, Oklahoma (1921) and Bruce’s Beach Resort in Manhattan Beach, California (1924).
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A seventh Black church is now on fire, this one in South Carolina.
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Smh. And notice how none of this is getting much news coverage, but the kumbaya bs is all over the news.
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Notice how do they don’t catch them ?
Cue the black preachers who will run around and fall over themselves to say
“I Forgive You”
“I Forgive You”
“I Forgive You”
“I Forgive You”
“I Forgive You”
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@Abagond you can add a 7th to that list. Mount Zion AME Church in SC burned last night. 20 years after it was burned down by KKK members.
http://www.sconfire.com/2015/06/30/greeleyville-battles-church-fire/
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@ Najiyah
Thanks. I added it under a postscript to the post.
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@ Pumpkin
That is the $64,000 question. Not something that can be answered in a comment. I will do a post on it for Independence Day.
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An Elon James White tweet from last night:
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Ooh abagond positing a political or other solution? That should be good.
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I read in an article that six Black churches were burned down days following the Charleston massacre. Then I get memories of reading history books and hearing recounts from older Black elders about Black churches, businesses etc burning in Black areas across the nation in the late 1960s due to rioting after Dr. King had been shot and killed. To me, this is the 1960s all over again but with a vengeance.
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This looks like the work of white supremacist.
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well just to go deep and i do g2g like 2 and a half hours ago,
http://www.wisdom-square.com/top-10-things-you-shouldnt-know-about-the-illuminati.html
skeptics do exist but the obelisk in washington etc etc it is written and said that supposedly ‘higher level’ ie +/- 1% ideology in american islamic theory of white people that is that the masons ‘coopted’ egyptian is that shem or ham who the f knows any way i think japheth is where ‘caucasian’ came from ie indo europoean area but i digress philosophy certainly the ‘western mystery traditions’ picked up on this, i can’t go for lotr staunch catholic ideology of course america was protestant too
i feel the masons is mostly christian and a sort of old boy club it is called the mason dixon line for a reason i need to study that it goes through PA and NJ
~
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the leaving the slaves alone to have land and cows and evangelization i said ok thats enough ie lotr papal bull link
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obviously i’m back to balfour all day but the NT significance is limited to me and perhaps summarized in the so called prophecy of the new jerusalem and the colors idk nuclear cloud
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We don’t need to worry about ISIS when we had home grown domestic terrorist right here in the United States.
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Lol lol lol lol lol lol! One CVS pharmacy gets burnt down – endless replays! Those darn negros destroying their communities! Seven black churches get burnt down – ummmmmmm………. Yeah.
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I’m not advocating for some impractical Marcus Garvey shit, but you all need to get Jewish or something. So, how to keep the money in, the Arabs (on the damn corner stores) out, and women down? But seriously, there should be some other sources of power other than athletes and pastors. Like lobbyists and bankers……
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@Pumpkin
For some reason this reminded me of rosewood. The attack on hardworking middle class blacks as a way of saying “know your place.” Whites are quick to yell “several baby daddies” “working to pay for your babies” “welfare queen” and yet those are not the people they attack. Not that I want them to attack them, but I just want to point out who they are ready and willing to attack. They like the idea of seeing blacks beneath them and anyone that rises to their level or shows themselves to be better than them will be punished.
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and please tell me why all these damn white people are on youtube doing watch me whip/nae nae.
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What’s that?
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Ooooohhkay… OK just found out. Yikes! Never mind!
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I don’t wanna be that person…but as I watched the vid (what I could stand of it), I couldn’t help but think…wow this is how “cool” things become corny fast.
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@pumpkin, I no longer enjoy tv/movies like I used to as well. For the past few years, I hardly watch tv anymore…only news and even then I look at it with critical eye. I especially find white romance movies nauseating. I can barely watch white actors in movies/tv with all the fake toughness and fake smiles while black people are suffering because of white supremacy.
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“and where are the white christians who are supposed to be brothers and sister with everyone speaking out about this? ”
Well let’s see my guesses are they are either A) at their churches in their white communities. B) In a country overseas helping the poor starving children of color C) busy preaching about gays or D) not speaking out about it because they don’t care and don’t want to lose the money their members bring by offending them.
@ sharina
lol they can’t whip or nae nae seeing them trying to do both is tragic. They love black culture but don’t give a f about us. They are going to ruin it like they ruined other dances and next they are going to ruin the excuse my name is… song they already trying to take over the sausage song. Black folks need to stop hyping them up stop saying they are good when they are mediocre compared to black and people of color doing it.
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@ satanforce
“Lol lol lol lol lol lol! One CVS pharmacy gets burnt down – endless replays! Those darn negros destroying their communities! Seven black churches get burnt down – ummmmmmm………. Yeah. ”
Yep, it is funny to me how they love acting like god comes first yet by their reactions and coverage it seems a cvs is more important to them. Wait then I realized it is more important to them because it is owned by whites and these churches are owned by blacks. Yes they would be upset at black folks destroying a(white) business and say yall are destroying ur community, yet that pharmacy don’t do ish for the community,it doesn’t feed the hungry, give counseling, build houses etc. I know some churches don’t do this either, but they are more involved in the community.
Even though they love talking about thugs and black on black crime I don’t hear about these “thugs” burning down churches and doing things to destroy something that is supposed to be a house of god. Yet u got some white folks that will burn down something that is supposed to be holy, it just shows u how much they truly believe and who they really follow.
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“Even though they love talking about thugs and black on black crime I don’t hear about these “thugs” burning down churches and doing things to destroy something that is supposed to be a house of god. Yet u got some white folks that will burn down something that is supposed to be holy, it just shows u how much they truly believe and who they really follow.” @mstoogood, THIS, this, and THIS!!!
..I was just talkin’ to a relative o’ mine from Atlanta long distance the other day, about this and she and both (sadly but truly) had to agree that we were more disgusted instead of surprised about the cowardly church burnings being done (yet again)-though I must admit that I think this time it will most likely be continued ala’ New World Order style, or in other words “Racist Terrorism 2.0!
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@ Pumpkin
This is up at last:
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Update: Since October 8th at least five Black churches and one mixed church have been burned, all of them not far from Ferguson:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/st-louis-black-church-arson/411673/
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