Fire Guts Racially Mixed Okla. Church

Fire gutted a racially mixed church in this remote prairie town Thursday morning, the latest in a string of suspicious blazes this year that have charred the sanctuaries of more than 30 black congregations across the South.

Federal investigators, who spent most of the day sifting through the remains of Enid’s First Missionary Baptist Church, declined to comment on the cause of the fire or characterize it as the work of an arsonist. But church elders said that local firefighters, shortly after dousing the predawn inferno, told them there was evidence that an accelerant apparently spread the flames near a bathroom window that bore signs of a forced entry.

“This has been a blow to us, but we hold no ill feeling, we seek no revenge,” said the Rev. Alfred Baldwin, pastor of the 200-member congregation, which is predominantly African American but includes whites, Latinos and Native Americans. “It’s like a farmer who burns off his field--the crop that comes up next year is even greener and stronger.”

The fire, the 36th suspicious church blaze being investigated by the Justice Department, drew a swift response from Washington. President Clinton invited the governors from every state where black churches have been burned to come to the White House in the next two weeks and help devise a joint federal-state strategy to stop the fires.

“It is the cruelest of all ironies that an expression of bigotry in America that would sweep this country is one that involves trashing religious liberty,” the president said. He was particularly disdainful of the Enid fire, promising that the government will “work overtime to get to the bottom” of the crime spree.

Bob Dole, the presumptive Republican nominee for the presidency, said the church burnings “should not be tolerated.” But he also complained about Clinton’s visit Wednesday to a burned church in South Carolina, saying the president’s appearance “probably politicized it some.”

On Capitol Hill, House lawmakers passed a resolution Thursday in which they condemned “in the strongest possible words” the string of “hate crimes.”

“We are not Republicans or Democrats on this matter. We are not black or white on this matter,” said Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.). “If you burned a church in Enid, Okla., you are burning every church in America.”

Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he hoped to change current law that says there must be at least $10,000 in damages before an arson is declared a federal crime. Under his proposal, a dollar amount would be eliminated for church fires.

Meanwhile, top Justice Department officials met in Washington with local law enforcement officers from the affected states. They were seeking new ways to investigate the fires without angering some church leaders who have complained that FBI agents and other detectives have been “insensitive” in their lines of questioning.

“This is something that requires and will receive a special kind of attention,” Associate Atty. Gen. John R. Schmidt said. He added that he did not find it reassuring that no nationwide conspiracy has been identified thus far.

“If instead what you have is a situation where people in various places sort of on their own seem to be motivated by such a degree of racial animosity or anger that they burn churches, I think that’s a very disturbing thing,” Schmidt said.

Enid, a prosperous, largely Anglo town of 45,000 nestled amid the wheat fields of north-central Oklahoma, wouldn’t seem to have been a likely target. Ironically, the Enid News & Eagle ran a front-page banner story Thursday about local clergy expressing their outrage over the rash of fires, which was perceived as a Southern phenomenon far from this Midwest-flavored farming center.

“While there may be some undercover feelings in the community, Enid has not shown those tendencies that you might associate with some parts of the South,” said Baldwin, whose church was located in a part of town known as “The Ville,” home to many of Enid’s black families, who make up just 4% of the population.

As he spoke, shaken parishioners--held back by yellow police tape--surveyed the smoldering wreckage from across the street, where they had set up camp on the front lawn of a neighborhood funeral home.

Some shed tears, collapsing in each other’s arms as they struggled to fathom the hatred that had robbed them of their home of 35 years. They recalled the gallery of historic photographs that lined the walls, portraits of former parishioners from generations past. They spoke of the children’s crafts--ceramic crosses and picture frames--that had just been sculpted and painted by the vacation Bible class this week.

But they also took the opportunity to reaffirm their faith, reminding themselves that the fire had not consumed their spirit.

“The pastor, he told us it’s not the church that burned, it’s the building that burned,” said Eboni Williams, who sat on a makeshift bench of donated coolers as her fellow congregants sang hymns to the accompaniment of a boombox. “We’re actually the church.”

Katz reported from Enid and Serrano from Washington.