wfn.org | Clinton's Task Force Finds Fall in Attacks on Churches

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

3-February-1997 
97053 
 
                   Clinton's Task Force Finds  
                   Fall in Attacks on Churches 
 
                          by Tracy Early 
                  Ecumenical News International 
 
NEW YORK--A government report on investigations into arson attacks on 
churches in the United States, with special attention to white attacks on 
black churches in the Southern states, has indicated that the number of 
reported incidents declined sharply over the past six months. 
 
     The National Church Arson Task Force, set up by President Bill Clinton 
to coordinate government response to the attacks, said reports of arson 
(including bombings) in December were down to five black churches and six 
others.  That was a decline from the peak of 19 black and 30 others in June 
last year when Clinton drew attention to the issue in his weekly radio 
address to the nation and set up the task force. 
 
     President Clinton's radio address followed a campaign by the National 
Council of Churches (NCC) and other organizations about a series of 
apparently racial attacks against churches with mainly black congregations. 
 
     The task force's report was released on Jan. 18 to coincide with 
another Clinton radio address regarding church arson. Clinton mentioned the 
NCC as one of the groups that had "come together as one to tackle this 
problem." 
 
     Reporting on the period from Jan. 1, 1995, to Jan. 7, 1997, the task 
force said 328 incidents had been investigated, including 138 at black 
churches and, of these, three-quarters in the South. In the same period, 
arrests totaled 143, including 116 whites, 24 blacks and one Hispanic 
person. 
 
     Convictions had been obtained, the report said, for 48 individuals 
involved in 43 incidents. But a racial breakdown for those convicted was 
not given because some of them were juveniles, and personal information 
about juveniles is not made public. Of those arrested, more than 40 percent 
were aged 17 or younger. 
 
     Emphasizing that the report was only "interim," the task force said it 
remained "dedicated to solving these crimes and bringing the perpetrators 
to justice." 
 
     The task force offered little to resolve the questions that have been 
raised by a number of media criticisms of the campaign supported by the NCC 
to combat church burnings. Critics questioned whether there actually was, 
as alleged, a widespread, growing and coordinated effort by whites to burn 
down black churches.  And some suggested the alleged "crisis" of  "domestic 
terrorism" was manufactured to serve financial and political goals of the 
NCC and agencies associated with it, particularly the Center for Democratic 
Renewal in Atlanta and the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. 
 
     In October, Mary Frances Berry, a black woman who chairs the U.S. 
Commission on Civil Rights, reported that careful investigation in several 
Southern states had found "no evidence of a national or even a regional 
conspiracy to set fires." 
 
     Regarding the motives for the burnings, the task force report 
concluded cautiously: "To date, the investigations have revealed a range of 
motives, from blatant racism and religious hatred to financial profit to 
personal revenge or vandalism." 
 
     However, an NCC report issued Jan. 10 stated more definitely that "124 
churches in 22 states have been documented as victims of racially motivated 
arson." 
 
     But the question of how many black churches have been victims of arson 
and how much of the arson was due to white racism remained uncertain from 
the task force report. It spoke of a "sharp increase in attacks on 
churches, particularly African-American churches in the South." 
 
     An official working with the task force told ENI Jan. 22 that the 
"increase" was really in the number of incidents reported to federal 
authorities and would not include all such incidents, either in the current 
period or in the past. Nor were they all proved to be arson, but included 
cases where there was only some evidence or suspicion. 
 
     Acknowledging that the task force had no firm statistics from earlier 
years for comparison, the official said its efforts were needed in any case 
to respond to "concern in the country" and  "a great deal of anxiety" in 
the local communities affected. 

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