I am remembering when maybe fifteen years ago there was a claim that black churches all over the South were being burned, with racist graffiti left behind.....surely this was done by racist whites we were told......
It turned out that it was only a few churches, and blacks did it.
Sure. Without evidenced facts, those words are hot flashes in your mind.
There is
no evidence in the last thirty years of a
pattern in which
Black churches were burned by Black perpetrators in order to “frame” or politically damage the political right.Individual arson cases exist, but the idea of an organized or recurring tactic of “Black‑on‑Black church burnings to blame conservatives” is
not supported by any credible investigation, federal report, or historical review.
What the documented record actually shows
1. This is clear across decades of FBI, ATF, DOJ, and academic investigations.Examples include the 1960s bombings, the 1990s arson wave, and the 2015 Charleston‑era fires.
2. The federal Church Arson Task Force documented 429 arsons or bombings of houses of worship in 2½ years.About one‑third were predominantly Black churches.Investigations found many perpetrators were white supremacists, and civil‑rights convictions were obtained in multiple states.
3. Modern arsons of Black churches—such as the 2019 Louisiana fires—were also committed by individuals motivated by racial hatred or extremist ideology, not by Black perpetrators attempting political manipulation.
What about the specific claim?
The claim that “Black churches were burned by Black people to make the political right look bad” is a
recurring rumor in some political forums, but:
- No federal investigation has ever identified such a motive.
- No pattern of Black perpetrators burning Black churches for political framing exists in the data.
- The overwhelming majority of intentional attacks on Black churches have been linked to white supremacist, racist, or extremist motives, not political false‑flag operations.
There
have been occasional arsons by individuals of various backgrounds for reasons like insurance fraud, mental health crises, or personal disputes—but
not for political framing.
Bottom line
Across the last thirty years,
zero documented cases match the description of Black perpetrators burning Black churches to “put the political right in trouble.”The historical and investigative record points in the opposite direction: attacks on Black churches have overwhelmingly been acts of
racial hatred, not political false‑flag operations.