c. 1996 Religion News Service
WASHINGTON _ Racial tensions, highlighted by the recent spate of predominantly black church burnings, need increased attention at the local level, Mary Frances Berry, chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, said Wednesday (Oct. 9).
Berry and other agency officials detailed at a news conference what they had learned at hearings the panel held across the South this summer in the wake of the church arsons. While the majority of the fires in the South have been at African-American houses of worship, white congregations also have been victimized.
Berry said law enforcement officials who spoke at the hearings said racism was the motive behind 20 percent of those arsons that had been solved at that time.”Racial tensions are a major problem in the states in which the burnings took place,”she said.”Out of national sight and out of national mind, racial segregation still exists in schools and other public facilities in forms reminiscent of Jim Crow days before segregation in public accommodations was outlawed.” The bipartisan fact-finding panel has been studying racial tensions across America since 1991 and held community forums in the South in July.
Berry pointed to racial problems that occurred during efforts to rebuild some the burned churches.”In some communities, white and black ministers and church members were working to rebuild the churches and to address racial tensions,”she said.”In other communities, except for one or two ministers or public officials, the only whites who became involved were from outside the area who came as a matter of conscience.” Berry said many of the whites who came from other states to provided assistance were from religious groups such as the Mennonites and the Quakers.
Some white volunteers in Boligee, Ala., were disappointed that local whites were not involved in the rebuilding effort.”They had gone around and knocked on doors trying to get whites in the community to come help them”but got little response, Berry said.
Berry also said she was not surprised that law enforcement officials had determined that racism played a part in 20 percent of the solved cases.
The National Church Arson Task Force, a coalition of federal law enforcement agencies led by the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said there have been a total of 230 investigations of arsons, bombings and attempted bombings on African-American and other houses of worship between Jan. 1, 1995, and Sept. 4, 1996. The majority of those cases remain unresolved, and so it remains unclear to what degree racism was a factor.”What surprised me, though, was the depth of racial separation and segregation in some of those places,”Berry said.
When she heard talk of the”black swimming pool”and the”white swimming pool”in Greene County, Ala., Berry said,”I thought, `Is this 1930? What the heck is going on here?'” Likewise, when people in the community were asked about schools, they responded by mentioning the”white academy”and the”black school.””Some of that just really was shocking,”she said.
Berry said the hearings explored whether people were”making too much of”the black church fires.”The Justice Department and local law enforcement officials explained that there was no evidence or even intimations that the white church burnings were racially motivated,”she said.”Everyone agreed in the law enforcement community that at least some of the black church or interracial church burnings were racially motivated.” Milton Kimpson, chairman of the commission’s South Carolina advisory committee, said there were divided opinions in his state about the motivations for the fires. While some state and civic leaders were not sure of their cause, the religious community was”quite adamantly sure”that the fires related to racial problems.”If you were to ask me the status of race relations in South Carolina, I would tell you not so good,”Kimpson said. He thinks the problem has been made worse by the Confederate flag that still flies over the state house.”We are all God’s children and we all are citizens of this great country and it can’t be great until everyone is treated equally,”he said.
The state advisory committees will present their findings to local leaders and hope to foster further dialogue and action on the issues, Berry said.”I am very disgruntled about the response of some of the political officials,”she said.”The political officials were less than forthcoming in most of these states in terms of being involved.” The commission plans further work in addition to its hearings, and other discussions prompted by the church burnings are continuing on the part of government and church agencies.
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For example, the third regional workshop of the National Rebuilding Initiative, an effort involving the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the National Council of Churches and the Congress of National Black Churches, will be held at Xavier University in New Orleans on Saturday (Oct. 12).
Representatives of houses of worship damaged by arson will learn about available resources, including grants and materials for rebuilding.
In addition, an”Emergency Conference on Racism”will be held Oct. 24-26 in Columbia, S.C. The aim of the meeting, which is sponsored by the National Council of Churches, the Center for Constitutional Rights and regional organizations, is to start a national dialogue on racism.
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