Yet another black church in the South went up in flames Tuesday night, this time historic Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal in Williamsburg County, South Carolina — 20 years after it was burned to the ground by Ku Klux Klan members.

The Clarendon County Fire Department said shortly before midnight ET that the fire was under control, but it released a photo showing the church with its roof apparently completely collapsed.

Williamsburg County Fire Chief Randy Swinton told NBC News it wasn't known whether the fire was intentionally set, noting that a lightning storm passed through the area about the same time the blaze was reported.

No injuries were immediately reported, but The Kingstree News of Williamsburg County reported that the church was "gutted."

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/another-historically-black-church-south-carolina-burning-n384876

What's the church doing on fire?”

Jeanette Dudley, the associate pastor of God's Power Church of Christ in Macon, Georgia, got a call a little after 5 a.m. on Wednesday, she told a local TV news station. Her tiny church of about a dozen members had been burned, probably beyond repair. The Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco got called in, which has been the standard procedure for church fires since the late 1960s. Investigators say they’ve ruled out possible causes like an electrical malfunction; most likely, this was arson.

The very same night, many miles away in North Carolina, another church burned: Briar Creek Road Baptist Church, which was set on fire some time around 1 a.m. Investigators have ruled it an act of arson, the AP reports; according to The Charlotte Observer, they haven’t yet determined whether it might be a hate crime.

Two other predominantly black churches have been the target of possible arson this week: Glover Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Warrenville, South Carolina, which caught fire on Friday, and College Hill Seventh Day Adventist, which burned on Monday in Knoxville, Tennessee. Investigators in Knoxville told a local news station they believed it was an act of vandalism, although they aren’t investigating the incident as a hate crime. (In two other cases of fires at Southern black churches this week—at Fruitland Presbyterian Church in Gibson County, Tennessee, and the Greater Miracle Temple Apostolic Holiness Church in Tallahassee, Florida—officials suspect the blazes were caused by lightning and electrical wires, respectively, but investigations are still ongoing.)

These fires join the murder of nine people at Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church as major acts of violence perpetrated against predominantly black churches in the last fortnight. Churches are burning again in the United States, and the symbolism of that is powerful. Even though many instances of arson have happened at white churches, the crime is often association with racial violence: a highly visible attack on a core institution of the black community, often done at night, and often motivated by hate.

http://nation.com.pk/international/28-Jun-2015/black-churches-being-burnt-again

South Carolina Politicians Call for the Confederate Flag to Come Down

Local religious and political leaders joined forces today to call for the South Carolina state general assembly to remove the Confederate battle flag still flying at the state capitol after last week's deadly shooting spree at a Charleston, South Carolina, church.

"The time has come to remove this symbol of hate and division from our state capitol," said the Rev. Nelson Rivers, who is a member of the National Action Network and the pastor at a local Baptist church.

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Charleston Mayor Joe Riley said that while the flag was originally used to commemorate South Carolina residents who died during the Civil War, "years and years ago [it] was appropriated as a symbol of hate," he said today.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/south-carolina-politicians-call-confederate-flag/story?id=31944646