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Boyett: Arson swept like wildfire across the region in 1995-96
Frank Boyett
Fires start small. So, it seems appropriate that The Gleaner’s long-running coverage of a 16-month epidemic of arson began with three lines in the Fire Runs column of Sept. 7, 1995.
Before it came to a sooty end on Christmas Day 1996, arson had claimed about 35 structures in the Tri-County area, including three churches, several vacant houses and mobile homes, and a workshop. Most of the burned buildings were barns; most of the local cases occurred in the Niagara and Zion areas.
But it wasn’t just the Tri-County area that was affected. An Associated Press article written by Ted Bridis that appeared in The Gleaner July 24, 1996, reported that by that point suspicious fires had burned more than 70 predominantly Black churches in the South since 1995. About an equal number of white churches had been torched during the same period.