While early indications are that the flames that swept through the 850-year-old Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris were set accidentally, the fires that burned three African American churches in Louisiana definitely were not.
On Monday, as the world watched flame and smoke pouring out of the historic Paris structure, back in United States a suspect in multiple church fires was being indicted. Holden Matthews is accused of setting fires at St. Mary Baptist Church in Port Barre, the Greater Union Baptist Church in Opelousas, and the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Opelousas within a span of just 10 days. Matthews is being held without bail on charges of both arson and hate crimes.
Though they may lack 13th-century rose windows and centuries-old works of art, these churches were as much the centers of their communities as Notre Dame is of Paris. That’s exactly why they were attacked. It’s why black churches have again and again been the targets of violence from racists who know that harming a church is a visible wound that affects hundreds of people all at once. That’s why in one terrible period starting in 1995, more than 30 black churches were burned in just 18 months. And there are indications that the number of attacks against black churches reported may be drastically smaller than the number of those that occur.
Billionaires who own luxury fashion brands are not swooping in to provide the funds to rebuild these churches. Neither is the government. If these churches are going to be rebuilt, it’s going to be a brick at a time, a dollar at a time, from ordinary people whose concern is not about historic architecture or great works of art, but about the work these churches do in their hometowns: the work of supporting people in need, of helping to organize and communicate, and of providing a moral and spiritual center for their congregations. There may not be any flying buttresses or vaulted ceilings in their future, but, with some help, there can be a place to celebrate, to mourn, and to organize.
That’s going to take small donations from regular people.