According to the New York Times, three African American churches have burned in the last ten days. In one Louisiana Parish. I suggest no motive or connection. Make of it what you will.
ATLANTA — Three historically black churches have burned in less than two weeks in one south Louisiana parish, where officials said they had found “suspicious elements” in each case. The officials have not ruled out the possibility of arson, or the possibility that the fires are related.
“There is clearly something happening in this community,” State Fire Marshal H. Browning said in a statement on Thursday. “That is why it is imperative that the citizens of this community be part of our effort to figure out what it is.”
The three fires occurred on March 26, Tuesday and Thursday in St. Landry Parish, north of Lafayette. A fourth fire, a small blaze that officials said was “intentionally set,” was reported on Sunday at a predominantly black church in Caddo Parish, about a three-hour drive north.
The Reverend Gerald Toussaint of the Mount Pleasant Baptists Church in Opelousas, LA, described St. Landry Parish:
a rural area studded with crawfish ponds and bayous in the heart of Cajun and Creole country. It is 56 percent white and 41 percent black. Mr. Toussaint said that relations were generally good between black and white residents.
Saint Landry Parish was once the residence of Gordon or “Whipped Peter.” Gordon was a slave on the Lyons Plantation who, in March of1863, escaped to a Union Army Camp. Photographs of the extensive scarring on Gordon’s back become a feature in Harper’s Weekly, the most widely read magazine of the day. The photographs helped to dispel any illusion of the “well-treated slave” narrative.
You can find more about Gordon and the Harper’s Weekly photographs here.
The Harper’s Weekly article.
Gordon joined the Union Army as a Scout. He later fought at the siege of Port Hudson, at the rank of sergeant.