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This essay examines the wave of black church burnings that occurred in the United States in the 1990s. During the last decade or so, nearly 500 African-American churches have been burned, the vast majority of them in the South. Drawing from his own personal experiences as a young college teacher taking his students down South on “alternative” spring break trips to help rebuild these churches, McCarthy's essay examines the complex social, cultural, and political forces that have both framed the issue in the public consciousness and shaped the nation's response to it. Bearing witness to the enduring legacy of “race” and racism in the United States, “A Test of Faith” challenges readers to embrace a transformative vision of social justice rooted in the author's deep faith in the possibility of reconciliation.
Notes
∗Source: National Coalition for Burned Churches and Community Empowerment, Church Burning Research Center, Charleston, South Carolina, 2000.
∗∗Includes all arson incidents reported for African-American, “Caucasian,” Hispanic, Jewish, “Mixed,” and “Unknown” congregations. Of the 1263 total arsons reported during the 1990s, 432 were directed at African-American churches; 483 at “Caucasian” churches; 31 at Hispanic churches; 11 at Jewish synagogues; 12 at “Mixed” churches; and 294 at “Unknown” congregations.
∗∗∗Percentage of reported arsons directed at African-American churches between 1990–1999.
∗∗∗∗Total population by state (with percentages of white and Black populations), based on 2000 Census findings. Source: John W. Wright, ed. 2003 New York Times Almanac (New York: Penguin, 2002).
∗∗∗∗∗All but one southern state—Virginia—is included in the 20 states with the highest number of reported arsons. The top 8 states reporting the largest percentage of Black church burnings are all located in the South: AK, MS, SC, AL, TN, LA, GA, and NC. Interestingly, these are also the states with the largest Black populations (i.e., relative to whites).
1. White quoted in Michael Madden, “White says church attack was racially motivated,” Boston Globe, January 12, 1996.
2. Numerous scholars have traced the evolution of “race”—and its relationship to slavery, emancipation, and the rise of Jim Crow segregation—in American history. The most sophisticated treatments include W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America (New York: Antheneum, 1992); Barbara Jeanne Fields, “Slavery, Race, and Ideology in the United States of America,” New Left Review 81 (May–June 1990), pp. 95–118; David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975); Winthrop Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550–1812 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968); C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (3rd rev. ed; New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); Nathan Huggins, “The Deforming Mirror of Truth” in Revelations: American History, American Myths (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Theodore Allen, The Invention of the White Race: The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America, 2 vols. (London and New York: Verso Press, 1997); and George M. Fredrickson, White Supremacy: A Comparative Study in American and South African History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982). Lest one think that “race” is merely a historical phenomenon with little or no contemporary relevance, the Mississippi state legislature recently offered a powerful example of how “racial” attitudes continue to be inextricably linked to the legacy of slavery. In 1995, Mississippi finally became the last state in the nation to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment—adopted in 1865—which abolished slavery at the end of the Civil War. One has to wonder (1) what took them so long; and (2) whether there was any debate before the vote.
3. The Center for Democratic Renewal lists its mission and history on its website, http://www.thecdr.org.
4. See Black Church Burnings: Research Report on Hate Groups and Hate Crimes in Nine Southern States (Atlanta, GA: Center for Democratic Renewal, June 1996).
5. For a detailed listing of the widespread response to the church burnings, as well as a bold moral appeal to confront the legacy of “race” and the reality of racism in American culture, see Bill Bradley, “Our Unresolved Dilemma: Church Burnings and America's Quest for Racial Healing,” Sojourners (September–October 1996), pp. 30–32. See also Michael A. Fletcher, “Christian Coalition Plans to Cooperate with Black Churches to Squelch Fires,” Washington Post, June 19, 1996; Michelle Singletary, “NationsBank Offers Up to $500,000 for Information on Church Blazes,” Washington Post, June 12, 1996; and Timothy Harper, “Rebuilding Every Burned Black Church,” Sky Magazine (February 1997). Harper's article highlighted the extraordinary commitment of John T. Dillon, CEO of International Paper, Inc., who promised to donate lumber and building materials to rebuild every Black church that had been burned. Representatives at International Paper estimated that the cost of this unprecedented in-kind corporate donation would exceed $2 million.
6. See Gayle White, “Looking Back at '96,” Atlanta Journal and Constitution, December 28, 1996.
7. For the most detailed account of the evolution of media coverage of the church burning controversy, see Joe Holley, “Anatomy of a Story: Who Was Burning the Black Churches?” Columbia Journalism Review (September/October 1996).
8. In her now famous essay, Morrison wrote: “White skin notwithstanding, this is our first Black president. Blacker than any actual person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime…. Clinton displays almost every trope of Blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.” See Toni Morrison, “Clinton as the First Black President,” The New Yorker, October 15, 1998.
9. William Jefferson Clinton, Weekly Presidential Radio Address, June 8, 1996.
10. The Church Arson Prevention Act of 1996 (Public Law 104–155) was signed into law by President Clinton on July 3, 1996. The Act stated that “Changes in Federal law are necessary to deal properly with this problem [of church arson].” Toward this end, it prohibited “violent interference with religious worship” (Sec. 3); imposed longer sentencing requirements for those convicted of church arson (Sec. 3); authorized the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to initiate a “Loan Guarantee Recovery Fund” to assist churches in the rebuilding effort (Sec. 4); authorized “additional personnel to assist state and local law enforcement” in church arson investigations (Sec. 6); re-authorized the Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990, which required the Department of Justice, under the auspices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to collect data on hate crimes (Sec. 7); and commended and encouraged “those individuals and entities that have re sponded with funds to assist in the rebuilding of places of worship that have been victimized by arson” (Sec. 8). The history of legislation to prevent “hate crimes” dates back to the first federal hate crimes law in 1969 (18 U.S.C. Section 245), which protected individuals against crimes due to “race, color, or national origin.” Since then, laws have been passed to add gender, religion, physical disability, and sexual orientation to the list of protected categories, although this varies from state to state. According to the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990, “hate crimes” (or “bias crimes”) are those “crimes that manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, including where appropriate the crimes of murder, non-negligent manslaugher, forcible rape, aggravated assault, simple assault, intimidation, arson, and destruction, damage, or vandalism of property” (Public Law 101-275). See “U.S. Hate Crimes: Definitions and Facts,” http://www.religioustolerance.org; and also Bureau of Justice Assistance, A Policymaker's Guide to Hate Crimes (Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Assistance Monograph, 1997).
11. National Church Arson Task Force, Fourth Year Report for the President (Washington, September 2000).
12. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” reprinted in Timothy Patrick McCarthy and John McMillian, eds., The Radical Reader: A Documentary Anthology of the American Radical Tradition (New York: New Press, 2003), pp. 362–377.
13. Clinton, Weekly Presidential Radio Address, June 8, 1996.
14. Jones, qtd. in Holley, “Who Was Burning the Churches?” See also Herb Boyd, “Black Churches, Victims of Terrorism, Worried by FBI, ATF Investigations,” Amsterdam News, May 25, 1996.
15. Bob Herbert, “A Church Destroyed by Hate,” New York Times, May 24, 1996.
16. Manning Marable, “Why the Churches Burn,” “Along the Color Line” (syndicated column), July 1996.
17. Jackson, qtd. in Newsweek, June 3, 1996. See also “Jesse Jackson Tours Burned-Out Church,” Los Angeles Sentinel, May 16, 1996.
18. Lowery, qtd. in Ron Nixon and Dennis Bernstein, “The Fires This Time,” The Nation, June 17, 1996. See also Minutes of the Judiciary Committee, U.S. House of Representatives, March 22, 1996.
19. Clinton, Weekly Presidential Radio Address, June 8, 1996.
20. LeBoutillier, qtd. in “Black Church Burnings,” http://www.politus.blogspot.com, September 23, 2003.
21. See “Others Don't Recall,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, June 9, 1996; and Julian E. Barnes, “‘Painful Memories’,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, June 11, 1996.
22. Dees, qtd. in Ronald Smothers, “Black Church Fires are under U.S. Review,” New York Times, January 20, 1996. For nearly two decades, Dees has been one of the nation's leading crusaders against organized white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan. However, by focusing all of his energy on undermining these organizations, Dees has developed a troubling blind spot when it comes to isolated, unorganized, or random acts of racial violence. Ironically, Dees's public reluctance to treat the recent Black church arsons with the same seriousness he displayed in his work against the Klan gave unwitting support to those who later turned their backs on the issue after claiming there was no evidence of a “conspiracy.”
23. Michael Fumento, “A Church Arson Epidemic? It's Smoke and Mirrors,” Wall Street Journal, July 8, 1996.
24. Michael Kelly, “Playing with Fire,” The New Yorker, July 15, 1996.
25. After the initial media sensation over the church burnings subsided, prominent media outlets began running stories about corrupt Black ministers who were allegedly manipulating national concern over the arsons to their personal advantage—through insurance fraud, misappropriation of rebuilding funds, or (in rare instances) by burning the churches themselves. These stories further fueled suspicion that the arson “conspiracy” had been concocted by civil rights activists and their liberal sympathizers. For one example of this, see Monica Davey and David Barstow, “League Asks Lyons What Became of its Donation,” St. Petersburg Times, September 12, 1997.
26. National Church Arson Task Force, Fourth Year Report for the President (September 2000), pp. 6–8.
27. Source: National Coalition for Burned Churches and Community Empowerment (Charleston, SC: Church Burning Research Center, 1999).
28. This is especially the case in rural and segregated areas of the South, where the church is even more indispensable as a haven from surrounding poverty and racial tension, and where the overwhelming majority of Black church burnings have taken place during the last decade or so. This is not to say that attacks on Black churches are worse than attacks on white churches—arson is a hideous violation and criminal act no matter what the target—but I do want to underscore the disproportionate devastation these crimes have had on the African-American community.
29. Source: National Coalition for Burned Churches and Community Empowerment (Charleston, SC: Church Burning Research Center, 1999). These figures include all arson incidents reported for African-American, “Caucasian,” Hispanic, “Mixed,” and “Unknown” congregations. Of the 1263 total arsons reported between 1990 and 1999, 432 were directed at African-American churches; 483 at “Caucasian” churches; 31 at Hispanic churches; 11 at Jewish synagogues; 12 at “Mixed” churches; and 294 at “Unknown” congregations. One factor that complicates these statistics is that “Unknown” churches often have interracial or “mixed” congregations, despite the fact that they are not listed as such. Thus, the arson figure for churches with significant or entirely Black congregations could be as high as 738, suggesting that “race” could have played at least some factor in close to 60% of the total arsons recorded during the 1990s. The statistics from the National Coalition for Burned Churches (NCFBC) are the most comprehensive figures available because they combine the findings of the National Church Arson Task Force's Fourth Annual Report (2000) and extensive local research, including interviews with church leaders and investigators across the nation. Still, the task of compiling accurate statistics is at once challenging and frustrating, making it very difficult to conclusively determine the motivation of these crimes. There are at least three reasons for this. First, federal investigators from the FBI and AFT are usually only deployed when local authorities request their involvement. This was almost always the case before the passage of the 1996 Church Arson Prevention Act; less so from 1996–2000, when federal authorities became much more active in investigations regardless of whether they were called in by local law enforcement officials. Thus, especially before 1996, federal figures on church arson are incomplete because they do not include incidents where federal officials were not involved in the investigation. Second, many (we do not know how many) cases are dropped when investigators decide that it is impossible to determine the cause of the fire. Generally speaking, arson is the most difficult crime to investigate—conviction rates are roughly fifteen percent, far below other serious crimes—because most or all criminal evidence is destroyed. This may seem an obvious point, but it's an important one, especially with respect to determining the motivation(s) of the perpetrator(s). Finally, there is often a great discrepancy between the findings of investigators and the accounts of local church leaders—and this is especially the case with African-American congregations, which, for historical reasons, often remain skeptical of the methodology and intentions of investigators. One powerful example of this was the investigation into the burning of the South Richland Bible Way Church in Gadsden, South Carolina. Despite the investigators' claim that they had completed a “thorough” investigation, they still failed to uncover the body of a congregation member who was killed after entering the burning church to try to put out the fire. The corpse was found by another member of the congregation just days after the investigators left the scene. My students and I helped to rebuild the South Richland Bible Way Church in 1999; it reopened the following year.