THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 21, 1996 TAG: 9606210544
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: PORTLAND, ORE. LENGTH: 43 lines
The sanctuary of a black church was destroyed by fire early Thursday, the first such incident in the Northwest since national attention focused on a wave of burnings across the South.
Federal and local investigators refused to speculate on whether the 3 a.m. blaze at Immanuel Christian Fellowship was racially motivated or a copycat of the 40 or so suspicious fires at predominantly black churches since January 1995.
``My heart was concerned for those churches . . . but I never expected it to happen here in Portland, especially at our church,'' pastor Mark Strong said. ``We never expected this, which may have been naive on our part.''
Investigators, including agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, declined to discuss evidence.
Immanuel Christian Fellowship, which until recently was called Immanuel Free Methodist Church, has 160-180 members and is about 70 percent black.
Many were puzzled over why a target was made of the wooden building where blacks, whites, Hispanics and Asians worship together in a predominantly black neighborhood just north of the Willamette River.
``If it was a hate-motivated crime they really needed to do their homework because they picked the wrong church,'' said Ulanda Watkins, 25, a recent law school graduate who joined the church last year. ``Our church is one of the most diverse churches you're going to find in Portland.''
In other developments Thursday:
In Virginia, Johnny L. Ramey, who is white, was charged with arson and jailed in a fire that destroyed the predominantly white Peterson's Chapel Primitive Baptist Church near Duffield early Thursday.
In North Carolina, Curtis Gilbert Jr., 32, asked for a court-appointed attorney. He and Rodney Bullock, 21, were charged with burning a building he was remodeling at Mount Tabor Baptist Church in Cerro Gordo.
Pew Charitable Trusts, a Philadelphia-based foundation, contributed $200,000 toward rebuilding the churches. Other pledges to The Burned Churches Fund, which now totals $2.7 million, came from the Andreas, Annenberg, Ford, Rockefeller, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur, W.K. Kellogg and Charles Mott foundations. by CNB