BY MARTIN BOYERS
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina - Arsonists burned down a portion of an historic Black church here June 6. This is one of more than 30 fires set in Black churches in the South since early 1995. A rural Black church was torched in Greensboro, Alabama June 3. The attacks have intensified calls for effective federal investigation and prosecution of those responsible.

The wood-frame sanctuary of Matthews Murkland Presbyterian Church was built in 1903 and is home to a congregation that dates back to freed slaves in 1864. The building was no longer in active use.

Church pastor Rev. Larry Hill vowed, "We intend to overcome this in a big way. We are not afraid." Many individuals from public officials to religious leaders to individuals visited the burnt ruins of the church the following Sunday to express their support.

Kelly Alexander Jr., a leader of the NAACP, called for the creation of Neighborhood Church Watch programs. "The neighbors of African American churches must become the first line of defense against arson. Church neighbors must report any suspicious activity in and around African American churches promptly to police."

The site was visited June 9 by Myrlie Evers-Williams, chairwoman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She pledged, "We will see to it that those responsible will be captured and will be punished." She also commended the proposal for a church watch. The NAACP national convention will be held in Charlotte July 6 - 11.

The fire was reported by Timothy Funderburk, a 28-year-old hospital worker and church member who lives across the road from the church.

He related that he has called police 8 or 10 times over the past year or so to report suspicious activity near the building. The church has been broken into, the interior damaged, refuse has been dumped inside, and the adjacent cemetery has been vandalized. One of the coffins was unearthed and opened.

No serious attempt to stop vandals
When called, Funderburk reported, the police did not make any serious attempt to catch the vandals. "When I reported that the guys had just turned to the left, the police would take their time getting going and then turn to the right.... Just today, the police department called and told me they had only three reports on record. But that's not true." Funderbunk reported seeing two carloads of men driving slowly onto the church property at about 11:30 p.m. a few days before the fire.

The list of 30 Black southern churches that are victims of this wave of arson attacks includes five in southern Alabama in the last six months, and it is far from complete. A March 1995 fire set at Charlotte's New Outreach Christian Center was not listed, according to a source at the city's Fire Department, because it was said to be a storage building. The congregation's co-pastor refuted this claim.

"We had services in there every week," Brenda Stevenson, one of Outreach's co-pastors told the Charlotte Observer June 8.

Pastors harassed by investigators
President Clinton announced the formation of a special task force to investigate the series of arson attacks in a radio address June 8. He said that 200 federal cops, including Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms police, will visit churches throughout the South and announced a toll-free number for information on the attacks. "Fire investigators, national response teams, polygraph examiners, and forensic chemists are combing through fire sites, interviewing witnesses, and following leads," Clinton declared. He also expressed support for legislation in Congress making it "easier to bring federal prosecutions against those who attack houses of worship."

Rev. Mac Charles Jones reported to a recent board meeting of the National Council of Churches (NCC), these investigators have often focused their probes against the victims of the attacks. "Rather than investigating the perpetrators of the church bombings and fires," said Jones, who is a Kansas City minister and associate director to the NCC's general secretary, "the agents are questioning pastors and their congregants as though they are responsible for the disasters."

He said some pastors have been asked to take polygraph tests implying they may be lying about the incidents, and that some Black female church members have been asked if they have been sexually molested by their pastors.

There have been some arrests in the arson wave, including two alleged members of the Ku Klux Klan. A 13-year-old white girl was charged June 10 with setting fire to the Matthews Murkland Presbyterian Church. Most of the other cases remain unsolved. North Carolina governor Jim Hunt offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to arrests and convictions in the Charlotte case. Charlotte-based Nations Bank offered a $50,000 reward per incident for up to 10 incidents

About 30 pastors from burned-out churches met with Attorney General Janet Reno June 9 and complained that official investigations focus more on church members than on outsiders.

Rose Johnson, executive director of an organization that monitors racist attacks, told the New York Times that after a church was set on fire in Knoxville, Tennessee, federal cops "fingerprinted church members, showed up unannounced at job sites and homes, and implied that some church members burned their church."

In another racist attack, a swastika was painted on a statue of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in Charlotte's Marshall Park this weekend. Police have no suspects.  
 
 
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