Church fires in the South recall past violence

Arsonists have torched several African-American churches in the South in the last week, and a handful of other fires are under investigation as the nation continues to mourn the shooting deaths of nine people at a church in Charleston, S.C.

Firefighters said fires at churches in Knoxville, Tenn., Macon, Ga., and Charlotte, N.C., were caused by arson. The damage ranged from minor—in Knoxville, someone set fire to hay bales outside the church—to complete. In Charlotte, 75 firefighters worked for an hour Wednesday morning to control the blaze at Briar Creek Road Baptist Church, The Washington Post reported.

Fires at churches are not uncommon. About 15 percent of the estimated 1,780 structure fires per year at religious and funeral properties are intentionally set, according to the National Fire Protection Association. That would equal roughly 267 church arsons each year in the United States.

“There are an awful lot of [intentionally set fires] that are not hate crimes,” NFPA staffer Marty Ahrens told The Atlantic. “They’re run-of-the-mill kids doing stupid things.”

Still, the three declared arsons, along with at least three other church fires whose causes are accidental or unknown, have touched a nerve in the South, where African-American churches have been targets of arson and violence before. In 1996, President Bill Clinton created the National Church Arson Task Force after a spate of arsons at African-American churches in the South. The task force only lasted a few years and found no evidence of a racist conspiracy linking the arsons.

A week before the fire at Briar Creek Road Baptist Church, Dylann Roof opened fire in a Bible study at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, killing the church’s pastor and eight other people. A manifesto on a website registered in Roof’s name criticized African-Americans as criminals who are inferior to white people.

Bob Lowman, director of Charlotte’s Metrolina Baptist Association, told The Charlotte Observer he didn’t know whether racial hatred motivated the arson at Briar Creek Road Baptist Church, but, “with everything going on, it certainly didn’t surprise me.”