The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.60/No.27           July 22, 1996 
 
 
Protest Denounces Church Burnings  

BY MARTIN BOYERS

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina - Some 350 people held a protest meeting here at the Friendship Missionary Baptist Church to condemn the 18-month wave of racist arson attacks on about 40 Black churches in the South. Participants at the June 22 "Community Service of Unity" adopted a resolution condemning the burnings.

"We can't remain silent," the resolution stated. "We call upon the president of the United States and police agencies to capture, prosecute, and punish those responsible for those acts." Larry Hill, pastor of Matthews-Murkland Presbyterian Church, presented the statement. Matthew-Murkland's historic 1903 sanctuary was destroyed by a fire June 6.

Hill called upon state authorities to investigate racist and religious attacks. Other speakers at the meeting cited the support the victimized churches received from individuals and organizations throughout the world. They launched a drive to raise $50,000 to rebuild the damaged churches.

Rev. John Mendez, representing National Council of Churches, described this as "one of the most important moments in the history of the nation....Many politicians have decided that the way to get elected is to see who can be the biggest bigot of them all."

Meanwhile, a former union hall that was being restructured into a church building was damaged by arson in Shreveport, Louisiana, June 24. Rev. Bruce Lee Goss, pastor of the New Birth Temple Church of God in Christ, said the 70-member congregation includes both Blacks and whites.

Nearly a dozen people have been arrested in connection with the arson attacks. James Cavanaugh, a special agent in charge of the Birmingham, Alabama, office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, told the New York Times, "We are still looking at the possibility of racial motivations."

Two young whites were recently arrested for the burning of two Black churches in Greeleyville and Bloomville, South Carolina. One of them was carrying a card identifying him as a member of the Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan when he was arrested. The two suspects reportedly attended a Klan rally weeks before the fires.

Virtually all of the people arrested in connection with the church fires have been white. "There is no evidence of conspiracy, but there is clear evidence of racism," Attorney General Janet Reno admitted at a meeting of business executives in Detroit.

Several hundred people came out to protest a rally of a dozen Ku Klux Klansmen held in Greenville, Texas, June 21. Two Black churches were torched by arsonists June 9 and 10 in that city of 23,000 people.

At the beginning of the rally Black and white antiracist protesters held hands in the air and chanted "Go home" and "Go back to Arkansas," referring to the Arkansas-based faction of the Klan who came there. Signs included, "Hate has no place in Greenville" and "Without unity there will never be any happiness." Some Klan supporters in the large crowd unfurled the Confederate flag, while a few antiracist protesters burned Klan literature.

The following day, some 150 Black and white area residents marched to the Greenville Municipal Building where a rally and workshops were held. The long-planned march and meeting of the Doers Club, a Black men's organization, took on a different character because of the recent events.

The march, which was originally planned around the issue of Black self-help and family values modeled loosely after the Million Man March in Washington, D.C., became a broader event to demonstrate unity against the church burnings and the Klan.

"I want to see peace and unity in this city," Boots Loucks, a white antiques dealer, told the Houston Chronicle, explaining why she joined the march.

"There were rumors that the Klan would show up," said Anthony Harris, a faculty member at East Texas State University. "But they didn't. Maybe they got intimidated by us."

Bob Bruce and Lea Sherman in Houston contributed to this article.  
 
 
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