الَّذِينَ أُخْرِجُوا مِن دِيَارِهِمْ بِغَيْرِ حَقٍّ إِلَّا أَن يَقُولُوا رَبُّنَا اللَّهُ وَلَوْلَا دَفْعُ اللَّهِ النَّاسَ بَعْضَهُم بِبَعْضٍ لَّهُدِّمَتْ صَوَامِعُ وَبِيَعٌ وَصَلَوَاتٌ وَمَسَاجِدُ يُذْكَرُ فِيهَا اسْمُ اللَّهِ كَثِيرًا وَلَيَنصُرَنَّ اللَّهُ مَن يَنصُرُهُ إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَقَوِيٌّ عَزِيزٌ
Those who have been expelled from their homes in defiance of right, for no cause except that they say, "Our Lord is Allah".. If Allah had not checked one set of people by means of another, there would surely have been pulled down monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques in which the Name of Allah is commemorated in abundant measure. Allah will certainly aid those who aid his cause, for verily Allah is full of Strength, Exalted in Might. Sura al Hajj 22:40
2015 CHURCH BURNINGS
Since the slaughter of 9 blackamericans on June 17 in the historical Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church by the 21 yr old racist Dylan Roof and his statements about instigating a race war, there have been, as of the writing of this piece, 7 church burnings within a 10 day period prompting probes in 5 Southern states and an uptick in the amount of confederate flags sold and displayed throughout the country.
1- The first fire came late at night on June 21st when, authorities said, said some set fire to some hay bales just outside the College Hill Seventh Day Adventist in Knoxville, Tenn. The church sustained minor damage. A small church van was also burned.
2- Early June 23, God’s Power Church of Christ in Macon, Ga., was on fire. When firefighters arrived, the front doors were wired shut and they had to enter through a side door, the local newspaper the TELEGRAPH reported.
3- Early June 24, someone called 911 to report that Charlotte’s Briar Creek Road Baptist Church had been set ablaze.
4- On June 26, the Glover Grove Baptist Church in Warrenville, S.C., burned down.
5- The Greater Miracle Temple Apostolic Holiness Church in Tallahassee also caught fire June 26, . The incident is still under investigation.
“From slavery and the days of Jim Crow through the civil rights movement and beyond, white supremacists have targeted the Black church because of its importance as a pillar of the Black community, the center for leadership and institution building, education, social and political development and organizing to fight oppression. Strike at the Black church, and you strike at the heart of Black American life.” Wrote columnist David A. Love for the ATLANTA BLACK STAR.
Racism is alive and well in America. Malcolm X said that racism was as American as apple pie and in the essay Whites Speaking to Whites, activist Daniel Patrick Welch says that to ignore the importance that race plays in American life is like ignoring the importance that gravity plays when falling. Racism is at play in every transaction that we conduct. Its present when choosing which schools to send our children to, in the work place, in buying a car, when setting up checking and savings accounts, its there all the time. And just because you are not thinking about it doesn’t mean that there aren’t systems in place that have collected data about who you are and have predetermined how it will respond to your every interaction. All this based on race.
FROM THE HISTORY OF OUR STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM : 1963
The 16TH Street Baptist Church Bombings
The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham was used as a meeting-place for civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Ralph David Abernathy, and Fred Shutterworth. Tensions became high when the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) became involved in a campaign to register African American to vote in Birmingham.
On Sunday, 15th September, 1963, a white man was seen getting out of a white and turquoise Chevrolet car and placing a box under the steps of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Soon afterwards, at 10.22 a.m., the bomb exploded killing Denise McNair (11), Addie Mae Collins (14), Carole Robertson (14) and Cynthia Wesley (14). The four girls had been attending Sunday school classes at the church. Twenty-three other people were also hurt by the blast.
Civil rights activists blamed George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama, for the killings. Only a week before the bombing he had told The The New York times that to stop integration Alabama needed a "few first-class funerals."
A witness identified Robert Chambliss, a member of the Klu Klux Klan, was the man who placed the bomb under the steps of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. He was arrested and charged with murder and possessing a box of 122 sticks of dynamite without a permit. On 8th October, 1963, Chambliss was found not guilty of murder and received a hundred-dollar fine and a six-month jail sentence for having the dynamite.
The case was unsolved until Bill Baxley was elected attorney general of Alabama. He requested the original FBI files on the case and discovered that the organization had accumulated a great deal of evidence against Chambliss that had not been used in the original trial.
In November, 1977 Chambliss was tried once again for the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing. Now aged 73, Chambliss was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. Chambliss died in an Alabama prison on 29th October, 1985.
On 17th May, 2000, the FBI announced that the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing had been carried out by the Klu Klux Klan splinter group, the Cahaba Boys. It was claimed that four men, Robert Chambliss, Herman Cash, Thomas Blanton and Bobby Cherry had been responsible for the crime. Cash was dead but Blanton and Cherry were arrested.
In May 2002 the 71 year old Bobby Cherry was convicted of the murder of Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley and was sentenced to life in prison.