Church Fires Conjure Flashbacks of Racist Past
Feb. 8, 2006 — -- The rash of church fires in Alabama has conjured memories of a segregationist Southern past when the Ku Klux Klan and other racist groups and individuals targeted places of worship in the African-American community.
FBI investigators suspect the burning of four predominantly black churches on Tuesday -- the same day as the funeral of Coretta Scott King -- and the torching of five churches (four predominantly white and one black) last Friday may be linked. However, they haven't ruled out the possibility that Tuesday's fires were copycat attacks. State and federal investigators have offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to arrests, and FBI investigators have looked into whether the fires constitute civil rights violations under laws pertaining to attacks on religious property.
The fires have left many people in rural Alabama scared and shaken.
"The person that did this is a person that's full of hate, a person that's full of hate doesn't know God," said the Rev. James Posey, pastor of Morningside Baptist Church, one of the churches that burned down Tuesday. "It's a hard thing. It's a hard thing to swallow."
Attacking churches -- especially those in the African-American community -- is seen as an instant way of stirring fear. Places of worship are considered the heart and soul of many African-American communities, and served as sanctuaries -- places of refuge and comfort -- from the institutionalized racism blacks faced every day and as places to meet and organize during the fight for civil rights
Here is a look at some infamous past attacks on churches -- and what happened to those found responsible:
Edgar Ray Killen and the "Mississippi Burning" case — The subject of the 1988 movie "Mississippi Burning," the case involved the 1964 deaths of two white New Yorkers, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, and James Chaney, a black man from Meridian, Miss. Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney were participating in "Freedom Summer," an event in which young people from around the country came to the South to register black voters.
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