Investigators Probe Fires At 6 Black Churches In 5 Southern States

Investigators con­tin­ue their exam­i­na­tion of a fire at the Glover Grove Baptist Church of Warrenville, S.C.

Fires dam­aged Glover Grove and some oth­er black church­es in the days fol­low­ing nine shoot­ing deaths at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, rais­ing con­cerns that the inci­dents were hate-inspired arsons.

Now, in the case of Glover Grove, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division has released the fol­low­ing state­ment, say­ing it still does­n’t know how the blaze started.

“Based upon the scene exam­i­na­tion and the evi­dence col­lect­ed, agents were unable to deter­mine an exact ori­gin or fire cause. As a result, agents were unable to elim­i­nate all acci­den­tal igni­tion sources. Investigators observed no ele­ment of crim­i­nal intent. The cause of the fire was best clas­si­fied as undetermined.”

Here is our orig­i­nal post:

Glover Grove Baptist Church is nes­tled in a woody, qui­et part of Warrenville, S.C., sur­round­ed by trail­er homes and old cars. The con­gre­ga­tion is small, about 35 peo­ple, accord­ing to local reports. You have to look hard online just to find a phone num­ber or an address.

Hours before President Obama spoke to a packed house in Charleston last Friday in anoth­er black church, deliv­er­ing the eulo­gy for state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, Glover Grove Baptist Church burned to the ground.

It is one of at least six black church fires in the South, all of which have tak­en place in the week-and-a-half since nine peo­ple were killed in Emanuel AME Church.

Fires in Charlotte, N.C., and Knoxville, Tenn., are both being inves­ti­gat­ed as arson. Authorities in Macon, Ga., are inves­ti­gat­ing anoth­er there as “sus­pi­cious.” A fire at aTallahassee, Fla., church was like­ly caused by elec­tri­cal prob­lems, author­i­ties have said. Another in Gibson County, Tenn., may have been caused by light­ning. One burn­ing in Charlotte is being inves­ti­gat­ed to deter­mine if it could have been a hate crime.

Adonica Simpkins lives in a trail­er home right next to Glover Grove Baptist Church. “I actu­al­ly think it might be a hate crime,” she said, look­ing across a field to the church’s remains on a sticky, sun­ny South Carolina after­noon. “The way things are hap­pen­ing these days, you nev­er can say. Look how they went up there and shot some­one in the church, or oth­er church­es burn­ing down. It’s just so much going on in the world. You nev­er know.”

The burn­ing actu­al­ly woke Simpkins up that Friday morn­ing, and she was one of the first to call 911, right before she walked down the road to the pas­tor’s house to make sure he saw it, too.

“You could actu­al­ly feel the heat from the church,” she said. “The actu­al pow­er lines, just start­ed, pop, pop, pop! Then the pow­er went off. It was ter­ri­ble. You could see straight through the church, how it was burning.”

Another near­by res­i­dent, George Mack, said of the flames, “It was like stand­ing inside of a vol­cano, with the lava flow­ing. It was so hot.”

The pas­tor of Glover Grove, Bobby Jones, walked around the charred build­ing Sunday evening with NPR, point­ing out every­thing that used to be.

“The pul­pit, the high­est place, that’s the pul­pit,” he said as he gazed past the cau­tion tape. “My office used to be right there. And it’s gone. All my robes, and every­thing, all my stuff is in that room right there, it’s gone.” He vac­il­lat­ed between tears and dec­la­ra­tions of his faith as he spoke, assur­ing us, and per­haps him­self as well, that every­thing would be OK. “When you see me cry­ing,” he said, “it’s not sad. It’s joy. I just thank God for what he’s done, and what he’s going to do, and what he did in the past.”

Only two walls and the steeple still stood, with a large, unscathed white cross on top. The roof was gone. And just about all of the inside of Glover Grove Baptist Church was black­ened and charred. Some things remained, cov­ered in ash: the hol­lowed-out shell of a snare drum, a few chairs in the kitchen. You could still make out lyrics and notes on some pages of hym­nals. Some church pews were still stand­ing, but they were total­ly burnt as well.

When asked if he thinks the fire was a hate crime, Jones hedges. “I hope not. I hope from the bot­tom of my heart that it’s not. I’m 72 years old, and I’ve nev­er had a prob­lem out of anybody.”

When pushed, Jones says he doubts it was an elec­tri­cal fire. He’s an elec­tri­cian him­self, and he says all of the equip­ment in the church was work­ing fine before the fire. He thinks a per­son may very well have set the blaze. “If it’s a hate crime, it had to be some­body that’s not from here.”

Richard Cohen is the pres­i­dent of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and he says the recent burn­ings of black church­es through­out the South are “very, very suspicious.”

“Black church­es have long been the focus of civ­il rights activ­i­ty,” Cohen told NPR. “And for this rea­son they’ve been tar­get­ed historically.”

There was a string of them in the ’50s and the ’60s, dur­ing the civ­il rights move­ment. Perhaps the most noto­ri­ous was the bomb­ing of the 16^th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., on Sept. 15, 1963, which killed four young black girls.

A wave of church burn­ings swept the nation again in the ’90s, prompt­ing then-President Bill Clinton to sign the Church Arson Prevention Act, a law that increased jail time for peo­ple who burn churches.

As to this recent wave of church burn­ings, Cohen said, “It’s not unrea­son­able to sus­pect that what we’re see­ing [now] is a back­lash to the tak­ing down of the Confederate flag, the deter­mi­na­tion of our coun­try to face its racial problems.”

Whatever the cause of the Glover Grove fire, Adonica Simpkins says she will still be afraid. We asked her what it’s like to be a black per­son in South Carolina.

“I tell you what, I would­n’t walk down this road. I would­n’t walk down this road,” she said, sigh­ing as she point­ed down the road where Glover Grove sits. “It’s so much hate. You might walk down the road and hear the word n*****, for noth­ing. People used to be rid­ing by, and just throw bot­tles at black folks.”

Less than half a mile from the church and Simpkins’ home, a Confederate flag waves on a front porch.

State inves­ti­ga­tors told NPR on Sunday that they have not yet deter­mined a cause in the Glover Grove Baptist Church fire. The Aiken County Sheriff’s Office has turned over its inves­ti­ga­tion to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, and the FBI is inves­ti­gat­ing as well.

Jones is con­fi­dent he’ll rebuild. But this kind of tragedy isn’t total­ly new to him.

“We had anoth­er church that burned down, over across the woods there,” he said. “That’s been, what, maybe 30, 32 years ago, no 34 years ago. I believe that was an arson.”

Jones says before that church burned, he’d often find offen­sive mes­sages writ­ten on the out­side walls. Often, three let­ters, he said. “They put KKK.”

This sto­ry first appeared here. Investigators Probe Fires At 6 Black Churches In 5 Southern States