ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, July 5, 1996 TAG: 9607050107
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRED BAYLES ASSOCIATED PRESS note: below
ARSON AT CHURCHES, despite the media attention, is within the range that insurance officials say they expect.
Amid all the frightening images of churches aflame, amid all the fears of raging racism, a surprising truth emerges: There is little hard evidence of a sudden wave of racially motivated arsons against black churches in the South.
A review of six years of federal, state and local data by The Associated Press found arsons are up - at both black and white churches - but with only random links to racism. Insurance industry officials say this year's toll is within the range of what they would normally expect.
There is no evidence that most of the 73 black church fires recorded since 1995 can be blamed on a conspiracy or a general climate of racial hatred. In fewer than 20 cases, racism is the clear motivation.
``You don't want to discount the racially motivated fires, but this is a crime that has been going on for a long time and affects all religions and races,'' said Loretta Worters, a spokeswoman for the Insurance Information Institute, a trade group that tracks data affecting insurance companies.
Among the findings in a review of church fires in 11 Southern states where the trend was first noted:
nLargely because of a few nights' work by serial arsonists, there has been an 18-month jump in black church arsons.
Such fires are fairly rare in most states, and thus they multiply quickly. For example, Louisiana had seven black church arsons all year; four of them occurred in a one-night spree in the Baton Rouge area.
Mississippi averages about two black church arsons a year; when two churches burned on the same night in rural Kossuth, this year's tally stood at four. There have been six fires in Alabama - twice the average number for a year - after three fires in three weeks in a single county.
nThe number of white church fires also has increased. Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Virginia have seen more fires at white churches than black churches since 1995.
The spread was greatest in Texas, where a USA Today survey published last week found 20 white church fires and 11 black church fires. The total count for the last 18 months: 75 fires at white churches and 73 at black churches. The tally for the past six years offers a wider margin: 248 arsons at white churches compared with 161 at black churches.
nThere is evidence pointing to racially motivated arsons in 12 to 18 of the fires, including arrests for two fires in South Carolina and two in Tennessee. Another four Tennessee fires had clear racial overtones. Evidence suggests cases where black churches were singled out in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
nRacism is unlikely in 15 black fires. Black suspects were named in nine of those cases; another six churches were burned as part of arson sprees that included both white and black property.
nIn the remaining dozen cases where there have been arrests, the question of racism is more subtle. The gallery of suspects includes drunken teen-agers, devil worshippers, burglars and three separate cases where firefighters are accused of setting blazes they then helped put out.
Another possible motivation: At least 18 fires at black and white churches have come in the weeks since the media first spotlighted the issue of black church fires.
``There's a lot of feeling out there that there are copycat fires,'' said Richard Gilman of the Insurance Committee for Arson Control, an industry trade group.
Fire experts like Gilman say the seeming rash of fires reveals a simple fact: Churches have long been a favorite target for arsonists.
National Fire Protection Association data show the rate of church arsons has dropped steadily from the 1,420 recorded in 1980. In 1994, the last year of available data, there were an estimated 520 church arsons nationwide - about 10 a week.
Often located in isolated areas, empty for most of the week, churches offer a secluded venue for firebugs, vandals, thieves and those with a grudge.
Thirty percent of all church fires are attributed to arson, twice the rate of all structure fires in the United States.
``The number of arson fires that have broken out this year are within the norm,'' the Insurance Information Institute's Worters said.
Still, the furor over black church fires has caught on, to the point that President Clinton, Attorney General Janet Reno, Christian Coalition executive director Ralph Reed, and scores of religious and political figures have spoken out against them.
How was the federal government alerted to the issue? The states inform federal authorities of church arsons; those notifications increased in 1995, and investigators are trying to determine what that means.
Some fires are clearly a product of hate. Since 1990, federal and state courts have heard at least seven cases that sent 23 people to prison for burning or desecrating 13 churches and one synagogue.
One of those cases involved the torching of a pair of Tennessee churches by three white men whose Super Bowl carousing turned ugly. More recently, two young men with Ku Klux Klan ties were arrested for burning two South Carolina churches.
Evidence of racial motivation exists for arsons in Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama where neighboring black churches were burned over a short period while nearby white churches were spared.
``You can't discount the fairly obvious thread of racism that is involved. I don't think there's room in America for that kind of coincidence,'' said Noah Chandler, a research associate with the Center for Democratic Renewal, the Atlanta-based civil rights group that has campaigned to bring attention to black church fires in the South.
But little evidence of racial intent exists in a majority of the recent fires. Investigators, and in some cases even church officials, have discounted hate as a motivation in a dozen cases where whites were arrested and in a number of cases that remain under investigation.
Many of the unsolved cases are believed to be the work of burglars or juveniles or accidents.
``Most times until you identify the perpetrator you can't know the motive,'' said John Robison, Alabama's fire marshal. ``Yes, there are some of them that are racially motivated, but a vast majority of them are not.''
For the residents of Barnwell County, S.C., motive remains a mystery in an attack on three churches along a six-mile stretch of Highway 300 on the night of April 13.
Arsonists using diesel fuel hit the black Rosemary Baptist Church and two white congregations, Mount Olivet Baptist and Allen's Chapel Baptist. The black church was seriously damaged; fires failed to spread at the other two.
When Gov. David Beasley visited the black church and appeared with its pastor, Allen's Chapel pastor J.H. Propst watched from the crowd.
``No one in the community really understands these fires,'' Propst said. ``But from the president on down to the governor, no one has focused on the fact they intended to burn our church down, too.''
But the issue has not been divisive. Propst's church voted to open its doors to the black congregation.
``If anything, it has brought us together as Christian people,'' he said.
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