Friday, March 10, 2006
church burnings
In the fifities and sixties (and earlier) churches were burned in the south by frightened racists trying to intimidate African Americans. In the Eighties there was a rash of church burnings to collect insurance money. In the 21st century college kids burn churches for kicks:
Three college students from the prosperous suburbs of Birmingham, Ala., were arrested yesterday in the burning of nine Baptist churches last month in rural Alabama. Federal officials said the fires were a "joke" that spun out of control while the students were deer hunting.
After initially setting ablaze five churches in the county just south of Birmingham, two students burned four additional churches days later in more remote areas, hoping to divert investigators, the authorities said.
