wfn.org | NCC Defends Church Rebuilding and Anti-racism Efforts

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26-September-1996 
 
 
96361 NCC Defends Church Rebuilding and Anti-racism Efforts 
 
                      by Jerry L. Van Marter 
 
GENEVA--Two officials of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the 
U.S.A. (NCC) reiterated today their belief that the widespread burning of 
black churches in the United States is primarily motivated by racism. 
 
     They also reaffirmed the NCC's determination to spend 15 percent of 
the money it has received for its "Burned Churches Fund" on long-term 
programs to combat racism in the country. 
 
     Countering assertions printed in the "Wall Street Journal" and the 
"New Yorker" magazine that the NCC is raising money for one purpose 
(rebuilding churches) but spending it on another (anti-racism program), NCC 
general secretary Joan Brown Campbell told a group of journalists attending 
the World Council of Churches Central Committee meeting here that "the fact 
is we have made it clear from the beginning that the money raised was going 
to be used for both purposes." 
 
     Campbell said that most of the $6 million in cash raised to date had 
been donated on an unrestricted basis and that "some donors, recognizing 
that racism lies behind these burnings, have specifically earmarked their 
contributions for the anti-racism efforts."  Another $3 million had been 
received in building materials and other "in-kind" contributions, she 
added. 
 
     Mac Charles Jones, the NCC's associate general secretary for racial 
justice, said the critical press articles "have caused us to lose some of 
the pledges made to the `Burned Churches Fund,'" though he could not 
specify an exact amount.  
 
     Jones said the NCC was currently "investigating" approximately 120 
church burnings and has estimated that it would take $20 million to rebuild 
them all.  Though more people had volunteered to help "than we can possibly 
deploy," Jones said, "it is absurd to allege, as some have, that we have 
more money than we can use to rebuild these churches." 
 
     Asked about the huge response to the "Burned Churches Fund," Jones 
said there "is something unconscionable among all folk about the 
destruction of churches."  He said he believed financial support of the 
effort was "an atonement act by some communities -- folk are ashamed and 
sorrowful that something like this could happen where they live." 
 
     Jones insisted that racism was unmistakably behind many of the 
burnings.  He cited the recent convictions of two white men for two church 
burnings in South Carolina and their confession that they had been trained 
by the Ku Klux Klan and had in turn taught other white racists how to burn 
churches. 
 
     He also quoted racist groups in Georgia and Tennessee for whom burning 
churches was an initiation rite.  While there might be no detailed 
conspiracy behind all the burnings, Jones said, "there is overwhelming 
evidence that these groups are linked and that burning churches is a 
deliberate strategy." 
 
     Campbell outlined some of the plans for the NCC's ongoing rebuilding 
and anti-racism efforts. They include 
 
          the placing of advertisements in 10 black newspapers to denounce 
the burnings and the 
          racism behind them 
          a Church Rebuilding Conference held September 26-29 in 
Birmingham, Alabama, 
          co-sponsored by Washington, D.C. Quaker Workcamps and Habitat for 
Humanity "to 
          provide participants with an overall understanding of the 
relationship between the 
          churches and volunteers committed to rebuilding them" 
          an anti-racism conference to be held October 24-26 in Columbia, 
South Carolina, the 
          state where the most churches have been burned, in collaboration 
with regional civil 
          rights organizations 
          a national conference next winter or spring to develop national, 
regional and local 
          strategies for combating racism. 

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