COMMENTARY: Violence and vulnerability remain our constant companions

c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) FRUITLAND, Tenn. _ I recently visited the Salem Baptist Church in rural Fruitland, Tenn., as part of an interreligious delegation that was assembled by the National Council of Churches. Salem Baptist is one of the many black […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.)

FRUITLAND, Tenn. _ I recently visited the Salem Baptist Church in rural Fruitland, Tenn., as part of an interreligious delegation that was assembled by the National Council of Churches. Salem Baptist is one of the many black churches burned to the ground this year.


We were there to present Salem’s minister with checks totaling $125,000 to be used for the church’s reconstruction. The money was contributed by generous Americans from many religious, ethnic and racial groups.

But our little band of clergy was not the only delegation visiting Fruitland on that broiling August afternoon. President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore also were there, accompanied by their respective wives and children.

The nation’s first families had come to Fruitland (population 300) to condemn the epidemic of church burnings and to help in the rebuilding of a new edifice. It was no surprise that Clinton and Gore, attired in T-shirts and blue jeans, also engaged in some down-home political campaigning during their stay in Fruitland. It’s an election year, after all.

The scene at the church could only be described as surreal. A helicopter hovered overhead to guard against potential assassins lurking in the nearby woods. Four large dogs sniffed for explosives. Armored limousines, countless police vehicles, and an ambulance prowled the country roads. A metal detector, surely the universal symbol of danger and paranoia in the late 20th century, was planted in a field amid the corn and soybeans. A contingent of Secret Service agents, dressed in bulging blue blazers and khaki slacks, kept a watchful eye on the proceedings.

The isolated church, about 90 miles from Memphis, is on a narrow country road with nothing around it for several miles. As I stood in the welcome shade of the church’s three large oak trees, it was easy for me to imagine a dark night not too long ago when unknown people, filled with hate, drove up to the lonely church and set it ablaze.

Unfortunately, the only human witnesses to the crime are unable to testify. They lie eternally at rest in Salem Baptist’s nearby cemetery. The burning of the church remains unsolved.

Nor is the Fruitland tragedy unique. Most of the primarily black churches in the South that have been attacked in recent months are on similar sites, far from the security of suburban malls and tract housing, far also from the crowded inner cities.

Historically, racism prevented many black congregations from building their houses of worship on prime real estate. As a result, churches like Salem Baptist, built close to their congregations but far from populated areas, are easy targets for midnight marauders who do their evil deeds unobserved.


While members of the Salem Baptist congregation certainly expressed appreciation for the sense of national solidarity that Clinton’s visit helped create, they also seemed eager for the dignitaries to leave. What they really seemed to want was for peace and normalcy to return to their community; for their church be rebuilt and for life to go on.

There are some hopeful signs that an even deeper healing will come to Fruitland. The white Shiloh Methodist Church, just a few miles away, was accidentally burned earlier this year. The presidential entourage also visited that congregation. As a result of the two fires, the churches have established new ties. Members of both congregations were part of the interracial crowd of 300 that gathered at Salem Baptist.

Once the photo opportunities were over and the hammer-wielding politicians left the scene, solitude and silence prevailed again. The silence only underscored the isolation that made Salem Baptist Church and others like it so vulnerable to arson attacks.

Salem Baptist receded in the distance as our bus made its way down an isolated road. At the entrance to the main highway, I saw a large red stop sign that had been used for target practice and was battered with many bullet holes.

The image of that sign remains in my mind, a reminder that despite the outpouring of compassion we had just witnessed, violence and vulnerability remain our constant companions.

MJP END RUDIN

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