(NNPA)—It’s possible that lightening may have caused one of the fires. Another may be the result of faulty electricity. Still, in the past couple of weeks, there were fires at churches in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Ohio and Tennessee. At least two have been ruled arson by local fire departments. Several are still being investigated. Is it a coincidence that churches are burning in the days since the massacre at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C.?
President Obama spoke to the historical importance of Black churches when he eulogized Rev. Clementa Pinckney. The church, he said, “is and always has been the center of African American life.” He went on to describe Black churches as “hush harbors” for enslaved people, “praise houses where their free descendants could gather and shout hallelujah, rest stops for the weary along the Underground Railroad, bunkers for the foot soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement.”
To set fire to a Black church, to kill people in a Black church, to bomb a church strikes at the very heart of our community. These acts of terrorism are meant to intimidate, to send a message. That these recent fires have happened in the wake of protests against the vile Confederate flag suggests that these fires may be pushback from the protests, a continuation of work of the man who murdered nine people in Emanuel AME Church. Whoever is burning churches, though, forgets that it is not 1815, but 2015. The intimidation tactics that worked during slavery won’t work now.
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