ABSTRACT

Between 1989 and 1996 more than 200 black and multiracial churches in the US were burned (U.S. Government Committee on the Judiciary 1997). This number rivals the number of such events that took place during the 1950s and 1960s, the decades of some of the worst racial violence in the US (Morgenthau 1996; Smith and Peyser 1996). In response to this wave of church arson, President Clinton signed Public Law 104–155, the Church Arson Prevention Act of 1996. The law covers several areas, such as increasing the maximum penalty for arson, providing funds for the rebuilding of churches destroyed by arson, and increasing the arrest rate for arson. Purportedly, the law has been quite successful: the arrest rate for church arson is now twice as great as for general arson, and many churches have been rebuilt with funds from the Federal Loan Guarantee Fund (U.S. Government Committee on the Judiciary 1997). However, many questions about this recent wave of church arson remain unanswered. Perhaps the most important question addresses what factors led to this wave of racial violence.