US investigators examine cause of fires at black churches

US investigators are examining the cause of a series of fires at black churches across the southeastern United States over the past two weeks.

The fires began on June 21st with the burning of the College Hill Seventh Day Adventist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, and have continued across at least four states in the southern part of the country.

Authorities have ruled out any connections between the seven fires, three of which have been officially declared as arson and at least two of which were found to have had natural causes. A third fire was caused by an electric fire.

“To date the investigations have not revealed any potential links between the fires,” a US department of justice spokeswoman Melanie Newman said in a statement released on Thursday.

Tensions

The fires come at a time of heightened racial tensions following the June 17th shootings of nine African-American people at a historic black church in Charleston,

South Carolina

.

Dylann Roof (21) is accused of killing the people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and reportedly told investigators that he wanted to start a race war.

The gun attack has reignited a national debate on race relations and public anger about the flying of the Confederate flag on government property and in the US Capitol in Washington. The flag is associated with support for slavery dating back to the 1861-1865 Civil War.

The most recent fire, on Tuesday night at the Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church in Greeleyville, South Carolina, is just 100km north of Charleston.

Lightning strike

Investigators have found no sign of accelerants that might suggest arson as the cause of Tuesday’s fire. The FBI suspected a lightning strike as the cause. CNN meteorologists reported four lightning strikes in the vicinity of the church on Tuesday evening.

The church was previously burned down by men with links to white supremacist group the Klu Klux Klan in 1995. The attack was one of a series of racially motivated attacks on churches that prompted President Bill Clinton to establish the National Church Arson Task Force to investigate hate crimes on the black community.

Mr Clinton dedicated the church in 1996 after it was rebuilt, while the two arsonists were sentenced to almost 20 years in jail.

The other recent fires occurred at God's Power Church in Macon, Georgia and Fruitland Presbyterian Church in Gibson County, Tennessee – both on June 23rd – Briar Creek Road Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina on June 24th, and at Glover Grove Baptist Church in Warrenville, South Carolina and the Greater Miracle Apostolic Holiness Church in Tallahassee, Florida, both of which happened on June 26th.

Civil rights group the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), warned other churches to take “necessary precautions”.

The group evoked the memory of a spate of arson attacks at black churches across the US almost two decades ago with a Twitter hashtag topic that went viral online: “Almost 20 years later, we must again ask, #WhoIsBurningBlackChurches?”