wfn.org | Donors Add Another $1 Million to Burned Churches Fund

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

18-March-1998 
98085 
 
    Donors Add Another $1 Million to Burned Churches Fund 
 
    by Tracy Early 
    Ecumenical News International 
 
NEW YORK-The National Council of Churches (NCC) has recently added another 
$1 million to its fund to help black congregations rebuild churches damaged 
in racist arson attacks. 
 
    The burned churches campaign began in the spring of 1996 after the 
Center for Democratic Renewal, an agency based in Atlanta, said it had 
discovered a sharp increase in arson attacks on churches by white racists. 
Dozens of churches, most of them in the Southern states of the U.S., were 
burned in the attacks.  The attacks became a matter of major public 
interest, with President Bill Clinton promoting efforts to rebuild the 
churches and halt racism. But several leading U.S. publications questioned 
whether there was in fact any increase in church arson and whether they 
were motivated by racism. 
 
    Half of the latest $1 million was donated to the NCC's fund by Leona M. 
Helmsley, a Jewish millionairess who with her husband built considerable 
wealth from New York hotels and other real estate.  Last year she gave the 
fund $1 million and promised an additional  $500,000 if the NCC raised a 
matching amount.  That matching amount has now been donated, most of it by 
American Baptist churches, the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church 
(U.S.A.).  Smaller donations were also made by seven other NCC  member 
churches and $25,000 was given by individuals. 
 
    Helmsley, who is now the biggest individual contributor to the NCC's 
fund, is well known in New York because of her business activities and 
because of a highly publicized trial for income tax evasion, which ended 
with her imprisonment.  Her husband, Harry, a leading New York businessman, 
was unfit to stand trial and has since died. 
 
    Joan Brown Campbell, the NCC's general secretary, told ENI that the 
donations by churches were notable because they came out of denominational 
disaster funds.  Normally, the denominations allocated those funds only for 
natural disasters, but in the case of the burned churches they recognized a 
"community disaster" as an appropriate use for funds, she said. 
 
    Asked by ENI whether arson attacks on churches were continuing, 
Campbell said the NCC continued to get reports of occasional hate-based 
church burnings, but the "epidemic" seemed to have ended. 
 
    However, she said, the NCC was considering making assistance in 
rebuilding burned churches part of its regular work. 
 
    According to NCC figures, 44 churches have completed the rebuilding 
projects with NCC help, and 54 more are under construction.  But the NCC 
lists 130 more churches which still need  help.  A financial report issued 
by the NCC at the end of 1997 showed total cash receipts of $7.8 million 
for the fund.  All but $442,000 of  that had been spent.  Substantial 
amounts of materials and volunteer labor were also donated. 
 
    Asked by ENI about articles in the "Wall Street Journal," "The New 
Yorker" magazine and elsewhere questioning claims that the nation had 
suddenly experienced a widespread, growing and coordinated effort by whites 
to burn black churches, Campbell said there was a problem because of the 
lack of hard statistics on the number of churches burned, the  perpetrators 
and the motives. 
 
    "Whether there were more or less being burned than in past years, it 
was a big number," she said.  And churches that were victims of arson, she 
added, deserved help, especially if they were poor minority churches 
lacking resources to finance their own rebuilding. 
 
    In deciding which churches to assist, the NCC did not require legal 
proof that white racists were responsible, but accepted the judgment of the 
church and people in its community that a fire probably had its origin in 
hate, Campbell said.  In some cases, there was a history of racism in the 
community and evidence such as the painting of graffiti on the church. 

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