The following statement was released June 19 by James Harris and Laura Garza, Socialist Workers candidates for president and vice president of the United States.

Responsibility for the escalating racist burnings of Black churches throughout the South weighs squarely on the shoulders of the federal government. Two more Black churches were torched in Mississippi June 17, bringing the total number of churches burned to 37 - at least four in the last week. If this continues, lives may also be lost. We hold the government accountable for the safety and well being of Afro-Americans who attend these churches.

The White House, by its inaction, creates a climate that permits the racist arsonists to feel they can act with impunity. The continuing attacks on affirmative action and the recent blow against voting rights struck by the Supreme Court put wind in the sails of racists who seek to push back the gains of the Black rights struggle by other means.

Our campaign is raising this issue across the country. We are calling on defenders of democratic rights, Black rights activists, and the labor movement to demand the Clinton administration send federal troops to physically defend Black churches throughout the South as an immediate measure to halt the burnings. Any such congregation unable to secure its premises, or not getting adequate protection from local or state authorities, must have the right to ask and receive immediate assistance by federal troops.

At the same time speak-outs, picket lines, and other protests are needed to condemn these racist assaults and press the government to apprehend and jail those responsible. Mobilizations can push back the terror campaign aimed at intimidating the entire Black community and re-sowing the seeds of segregation in the South.

One such public rally has been called by Bishop George Battle Jr. of the A.M.E. Zion Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, for June 22 at 5:00 p.m. It will take place at the United House of Prayer, 2321 Beatties Ford Road, and deserves a big turnout. The Mathews Murkland Presbyterian church was burned there recently.

Supporters of the socialist campaign can help initiate other actions like this now. Another way we are responding is by talking with thousands of workers and youth in Alabama while petitioning to get on the ballot. Supporters are encouraged to join this effort right away.

Capitalism breeds racist violence all over the world. Fascist thugs have committed arson and violent assaults against immigrants in Germany and France in recent years. Church burnings here reflect the political polarization and rightist thuggery bred by the declining profit system. Ultrarightist presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan and Alabama governor Fob James have both championed the use of the Confederate flag - a symbol of slavery -which emboldens racist goons.

The labor movement has a big stake in this fight. The rulers' assaults on voting rights, affirmative action, and immigrant rights are aimed at striking blows to our civil liberties and weakening our capacity to fight. Their ultimate targets are the organizations and fighting will of the entire working class.

Today the federal investigators are dragging their feet, while treating the victims of the assaults on Black churches like they're the criminals. At the same time, state and local police and federal cop agencies are involved with every rightist outfit in this country and they can't continue to claim ignorance as to who is the culprit.

We call on trade unions, farm organizations, student groups, civil rights associations, and every democratic-minded individual to organize and join protests demanding the government provide immediate protection for Black churches and the police cease harassing parishioners and running lie-detector tests on pastors. Instead they should find and prosecute the perpetrators of the violence.

Now is the time to get out into the streets and demand:

Apprehend and jail the racist arsonists!

Stop the attacks on affirmative action and voting rights!

Federal troops to protect Black churches!  
 
 
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