Five Black churches in the Ferguson area have burned since last week, media shrugs
In the last 10 days, five Black churches have been set on fire in the St. Louis area. And unlike the last wave of Black church fires this summer in which weather played a role in some of the fires, these all appear to be the work of arsonists. The lack of media coverage about these fires is highly-noticeable, given the media’s hyperintensive coverage of rioters in Baltimore setting fire to a CVS earlier this year. “It is arson,” St. Louis Fire Department captain Garon Mosby told Fox 2 Saint Louis. “These are being intentionally set.”
This most recent wave of church fires are taking place in North St. Louis, near Ferguson, where racial tensions have been particularly high since the August 2014 shooting of Michael Brown. The department of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms is investigating the arsons.
On Oct. 8, 2015, the first fire was set at the Bethel Non-Denominational Church. Between Oct. 10th and Oct. 14th, three more churches were burned — New Northside Missionary Baptist Church, St. Augustine Catholic Church, and the New Testament Church of Christ. In the early hours of Saturday morning, another fire was set at the New Life Missionary Baptist Church. All five churches are within three miles of each other.
