Election backlash feared in church fire

Black residents agonize after Springfield arson

Springfield Fire Department Captain Robert Shewchuck (above) worked on the fire which started around 3 a.m. last Wednesday morning that destroyed the Macedonia Church of God. The building was under construction and was expected to be open in spring 2009. (Dennis Leger/ Springfield Fire Department)

SPRINGFIELD - Donnie Hatten was ecstatic about last week's presidential election. But when she was invited to a large celebratory gathering at a banquet hall packed with other African-Americans that night, she balked.

" 'Somebody might throw a bomb in there,' " she recalls replying.

No bombs were thrown into the party, but just after 3 a.m. several miles away, someone crept into a clearing in the woods and set fire to the predominantly black Macedonia Church of God in Christ, reducing it to a skeleton of charred metal and wood.

Investigators have yet to determine why the church was targeted, but they say the timing, just hours after Barack Obama broke the highest racial barrier in politics, raised suspicions that it was a hate crime. It touched off a raw fear that has lurked just below the surface in many black communities, that Obama's breakthrough success would trigger a backlash against blacks.

"That's something that's always in our minds, even though we may not voice it all the time," said Annette Smith, who lives near where the church was destroyed. "That's always in our mind, the fact that more people are going to come out of the woodwork."

Civil rights groups nationwide have been on high alert for possible hate crimes triggered by Obama's success on the national stage. They have recorded a few, isolated incidents: Late last month, two young men who are believers in "white power" were charged in Tennessee in a plot to assassinate Obama and kill black children in a school. On election night in Staten Island, N.Y., a black 17-year-old reported that he was beaten by four white men furious about Obama's victory. And white supremacist groups have asserted that Obama's victory has been a boon to their recruiting efforts.

But nowhere has the quintessential image of racial violence been so vividly evoked as in Springfield. The fire, redolent of the firebombing of churches and homes across the South by the Night Riders of the Ku Klux Klan four decades ago, was a blow to a city with a vibrant tradition of black churches dating to 1844, when abolitionists founded the Free Church.

"I really am appalled by the actions of those would do such a thing," said Archbishop Timothy Paul, the pastor of the Basilica of the Holy Apostles and a cousin of Macedonia's pastor, Bishop Bryant Robinson, Jr. "The burning of a church brings back some of the greatest memories of racism in this country."

The fire could turn out to be unrelated to race or presidential politics. A rash of church fires across the South in the 1990s touched off congressional hearings and anguished fears that racial animosity had been allowed to fester into violence.

But in 2000, authorities concluded that most of the fires were not motivated by racism but were the work of a self-described "missionary of Lucifer" who hated Christianity.

The Macedonia church, which has about 300 congregants, was established in 1950 by the current pastor's father, Bryant Sr., at the behest of Bishop Charles Harrison Mason, a preacher who traveled the country and helped turn the Church of God in Christ from a fledgling religious movement into the largest black Pentecostal denomination in the United States.

For years, members had been hoping to construct a church of their own and leave their current building on King Street, in a tough part of the city.

Last year, after securing a loan, the church began construction of a $2.5 million house of worship with a larger sanctuary, meeting space, and parking on Tinkham Road in Sixteen Acres, a peaceful, suburban neighborhood of wooded former farmland.

The move to a better location elated congregants. "Going from King Street to Tinkham Road was like going from bondage to the promised land," Paul said.

Despite some grumbling from neighbors about the clearing of woods behind their homes, the project proceeded smoothly, according to church leaders.

Construction was 75 percent complete, and members were expecting to move into the building this spring.

Then the fire hit, burning so fiercely that even the concrete foundation cracked. Across the city, phones rang, and people awoke to find that their joy at Obama's victory had been soured by the destruction of the church.

"They were deeply disappointed, and they were surprised and disheartened and stunned," said Bishop Robinson, 71, who is well-known in Springfield from his years as an elementary school principal, school superintendent, and police commissioner. "It appeared that we were so close to be able to see the vision in full fruition."

Immediately, a team of federal, state, and local authorities - including forensic chemists, explosives specialists, and disaster-scene cartographers - began investigating the fire from a state building across the street.

On Saturday, they ruled the fire an arson and began offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible.

"We are looking at all motives," State Fire Marshal Stephen D. Coan said. "With that being said, the investigative team is very cognizant of the fact that this occurred several hours after Obama spoke to the nation, so it is clearly on the minds of investigators, but it doesn't lead us in a singular direction."

Robinson said he knew of no threats against his church and is determined to rebuild. He is confident that insurance will cover most of the cost.

Robinson said he is hoping that authorities determine that the fire was the work of mischief-makers, and not someone bent on avenging the election of the first black president.

"I'm hoping that it's bad enough, that it's just arson," he said. "It would be even more of a stain on our nation if it goes beyond there."