INC NEWS - 600 protest burnings at 3 Durham vigils (articles, editorial in Herald-Sun)

[John Schelp]

600 protest burnings at 3 Durham vigils
Herald-Sun (27 May 2005)

Tears welled up into Cassandra Allen's eyes as she
looked around the candle-lit circle of about 250
people huddled at Durham's Oval Drive Park on Thursday
night to stand against the hatred symbolized by three
burning crosses found in the city the night before.

"I challenge you after you leave here tonight and your
candle is long blown out that you do continue to let
your light shine bright," Allen said.

Afterward, she walked back to the park's basketball
court to retrieve her son's ball.

"I have a question," her 11-year-old son, Caron Allen,
declared while playing with wax from his candle. "Is
this going to turn into a big war or something?"

"I don't think so," Allen said. "Someone felt like
they had a message to get across and they did it in a
very cowardly way."

Durham residents were shaken by the news that three
flaming crosses were found in the Bull City on
Wednesday night. Almost 600 gathered at three vigils
Thursday night to protest the burnings.

Although authorities have not pinpointed a motive for
the burnings, many residents see them as an attack on
the diversity they say attracts them to the city.

Community and religious leaders swiftly organized the
three candlelight vigils to demonstrate they would not
be intimidated by the symbols that some called
"domestic terrorism."

Nearly 100 people gathered downtown and planted a
crape myrtle tree at the site where one 7-foot cross
burned the night before.

"We feel like we were victims" said the Rev. Ryon
Price, a white 28-year-old who attended the vigil with
his black wife, Irie. "Regardless of motive, we feel
we are victims of a hateful act."

In southwestern Durham, about 225 people gathered at a
construction site on South Roxboro Street, just north
of Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway, where a cross was
extinguished by firefighters the night before. Some of
them prayed and others spoke about what the incidents
meant to them.

"We are here together as a community and we will not
let someone tear us apart with hatred," said Donna
Kornegay, who brought her two young daughters to teach
them what race means to some people. "I will not
relinquish my power to those who hate me."

The city Human Relations Department is planning a
larger communitywide unity rally for next week. Yvonne
Peña, who heads the department, said it's important to
coordinate an event catering to all backgrounds.

"The message is, 'We will not accept this kind of
activity whatsoever,' " said Peña, who canceled her
vacation after hearing about the incident so she could
be involved in the investigation. "We're a diverse
community and we're striving to overcome racial
barriers."

On Thursday, the Durham Human Relations Commission met
to brainstorm on whom to contact to help organize the
citywide rally. The plan is to bring community leaders
together Sunday to decide where to hold the rally and
how to get the word out to black residents who were
offended by the incidents. Most of the people who
attended the vigils were white.

"You're going to have to do it in a place that is not
in an entity that is threatening to anyone," advised
Jackie Wagstaff, a black Durham school board member
who attended a meeting of the Religious Coalition for
a Nonviolent Durham with Peña.

Durham has seen cross burnings before.

One of the last known cross burnings here was reported
in January 1983, when an interracial couple living on
Bahama Road awoke to gunshots and a flaming cross in
their front yard. No arrests were ever made.

Before that, five Northern High School students were
charged in October 1980 for lighting a 9-foot- tall
papier-mâché cross in the visitors' parking lot of
Durham County Stadium during halftime of a football
game against Hillside High School. The Southern
Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate crimes, did not
record any cross burnings in North Carolina in 2003 or
2004.

The flaming 7-foot crosses found Wednesday have left
Durham residents speculating why they were put up.
Some black residents have suggested the burning
crosses are a result of a proposal to change the way
school board members are elected -- though fliers left
at the site of one cross burning mention Durham gangs
and say "gangbangers ? will answer" to the KKK.

The election proposal -- being pushed by a group
called Concerned Citizens for Accountable Government
and the Durham Regional Association of Realtors --
would change the current setup, which ensures minority
representation on the seven-member board by setting
aside three areas with black majorities.

The change calls for letting all registered voters
cast ballots for every seat on the school board. It's
a change that opponents say could diminish black
representation.

"The whole idea of changing the school board and the
way it's been proposed creates a space for people to
be saying 'white power,' " said Theresa El-Amin,
director of the Southern Anti-Racism Network.

She said she cried when she was told about the cross
burnings and said she hoped it was "some kind of cruel
and little silly joke."

Civil Rights investigator Stella Adams, who heads the
N.C. Fair Housing Center, said there is no evidence
the flaming crosses were planted in response to the
proposed changes, even though "that's what the
African-American community feels."

Although the cross lit at Peachtree Place and Holloway
Street was relatively near the Durham Public Schools
headquarters, Adams said the two other crosses
appeared to have no relationship to the school system.

Others have suggested high schools students may have
set the crosses ablaze as part of a graduation prank.
It's a suggestion that Jordan High School's senior
class president Kristin Cunningham doesn't believe.

"I think the younger generation is generally better
about respecting each other's differences anyhow,"
Cunningham said a few minutes before walking into her
graduation ceremony Thursday night at Cameron Indoor
Stadium.

City Manager Patrick Baker said the incidents do not
help the city's reputation, but that he did not want
"to read anything into the event."

"I don't think this is a reflection of the values of
the community," Baker said. "Durham has always
embraced the diversity of this community and I think
this is sort of an anomaly."

Despite the fliers' reference to the KKK, the national
director of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan said
Thursday that his organization did not have a hand in
the incidents.

"I'm confident they'll find this was either
perpetrated by some small kid or, most likely, by some
kind of minority who is trying to create sympathy for
whatever cause he may feel like he had," said Thomas
Robb, who is based out of Harrison, Ark.

One thing residents seem to agree on is that whoever
is responsible for cross burnings must be punished.

El-Amin even suggested putting the perpetrators on
public display, so the community could tell them such
behavior is unacceptable. 

****

FBI joins police in cross burnings probe
Herald-Sun (27 May 2005)

The FBI has sent a trio of agents to Durham to
investigate Wednesday night's burning of three crosses
as a hate crime.

Mike Saylor, resident agent in charge of the FBI's
Raleigh office, said all the crosses seemed to be put
together similarly and that the burnings involved the
same people.

"We have opened up a hate crime investigation here at
the FBI and will be working in conjunction with the
Durham Police Department to see who is responsible for
[burning] the crosses," Saylor said Thursday.

Meanwhile, City Manager Patrick Baker said he would
provide the full support of City Hall to back police
"to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible."

Police Chief Steve Chalmers said he was shocked when
he first heard about the cross burnings.

"I really didn't believe it at first," Chalmers said.
"I think the total community is in disbelief right
now. We certainly don't want this to send the message
to other communities that there is a problem here with
race relations."

The crosses, about 7 feet tall and 4 feet wide, were
set afire Wednesday night at three locations. They
were wrapped in burlap and doused in a liquid that
smelled like kerosene.

The crosses were made of four 2-by-4s. They were
screwed flat together with grooves cut at the
intersections of the beams. A metal wire held the
burlap tight to the wood. Police seized the crosses as
evidence.

The first cross discovered was ignited on the grounds
of St. Luke's Episcopal Church on Hillandale Road at
Interstate 85. The final cross that was burned was
near another downtown church. Chalmers said police
have uncovered no information that indicates the
culprits were targeting the churches.

The second cross was burned on South Roxboro Street,
roughly a quarter-mile south of Martin Luther King Jr.
Parkway.

Stella Adams, director of the N.C. Fair Housing
Center, is a civil rights investigator looking into
the incident on behalf of the city and the State Human
Relations Commission to determine if the burnings
constitute a hate crime.

Adams said the only connection she found among the
locations was that they were all in high-visibility
areas.

The Hillandale Road area is a middle-class
neighborhood of mixed races, she said. South Roxboro
Street is an upper- to middle-class white
neighborhood, while the Holloway Street area is a
mixed neighborhood of Hispanic and black families.

She said the cross likely was burned downtown because
of its proximity to WTVD, the local television
station, to maximize the exposure of the incident. At
that location, authorities discovered fliers featuring
a drawing of a hooded Ku Klux Klansman.

They read, in part: "Gangbangers ? by order of the Ku
Klux Klan ? cease and disist [sic] immediately! Local
police have let your activities go too far. TAKE
NOTICE: YOU WILL ANSWER TO US!!! SINCERELY, 'KKK' "

Although Chalmers said he had not seen the fliers as
of Thursday morning, he said police would be careful
in determining what motivated the culprits to burn the
crosses.

"We don't want to assign blame or responsibility to
any particular group or organization," Chalmers said.

He also said police still were uncertain whether the
incidents were authentic Ku Klux Klan actions or
simply a prank pulled off by local youth.

"At this time, we're exploring all possibilities,"
Chalmers said. "We can't say that it is anything at
this time. We're not ruling out anything and, at the
same time, we're not taking anything for granted."

The Durham People's Alliance is offering a $1,000
reward through CrimeStoppers for information leading
to an arrest in the case, WTVD reported. ABC's "Good
Morning America" will be broadcasting live from the
Bull City today.

Senior Assistant District Attorney David Saacks said
prosecutors would seek the maximum punishment
permissible by law.

"But how do you prove who did it and what their intent
was?" Saacks said. "The key for us would be the proof.
If we were sure of our proof, we would definitely go
for the max."

Burning a cross on someone else's property without
permission is a Class 1 misdemeanor, punishable by
anything from probation up to 120 days in jail.

If the burners wore hoods or masks and it could be
proved they had an intent to intimidate, the offense
would rise to the level of a Class 1 felony, which
carries a maximum prison term of 15 months. But
probation would be mandatory if the burners had no
previous criminal records.

Three burnings in one night "makes me believe it was a
coordinated effort," Saacks said. "That is evidence of
intent to intimidate. If it was merely a political
statement, why not do just one or get a permit and do
it publicly so you would get more attention?"

Saylor said the FBI is working to track down whoever
was responsible for burning the crosses.

"That's why we do these investigations to see where it
takes us. Hopefully the investigation will lead us to
the culprits," he said. "When we get to that point, I
think there will be something that we can charge them
with." 

****

Editorial: A stupid prank or an act of hatred?
Herald-Sun (27 May 2005)

Most Durham residents are as perplexed as Mayor Bill
Bell by the three cross-burnings Wednesday night that
were a disturbing reminder of the nation's dark past,
when crosses were commonly burned by white hate groups
to frighten and intimidate ethnic minorities.

While shocking, the three crosses found Wednesday
didn't seem to have that effect. It's a sign of
progress that the crosses, at least in our informal
survey, left blacks more puzzled and angry than
afraid.

For blacks growing up during the Jim Crow era, a
burning cross was a powerful, unmistakable symbol of
racial hatred that incited fear. The very sight of one
was enough to cause families to pack up and move.

"At this day and time, I thought we'd be beyond that,"
Bell said. "I don't have the slightest idea why anyone
would do this."

As this was being written, law enforcement officials
had not found those responsible for setting the fires
and and leaving Ku Klux Klan literature at the scenes.

A couple of things are clear: The culprits took great
care to build the 7 foot tall, 4 foot wide crosses.
The 2-by-4s were meticulously screwed together with
grooves cut at the intersections of the beams. A
prankster would likely not have gone to so much
trouble.

Also, the placement of the crosses wasn't haphazard.
The first cross was burned outside St. Luke's
Episcopal Church on Hillandale Road, the second along
South Roxboro Street near Martin Luther King Jr.
Parkway and the third at Peachtree Place and Holloway
Street downtown. And while the two latter incidents
took place near communities heavily populated by
blacks, it's worth noting that the first at St. Luke's
did not.

So it's important to take the incidents seriously, as
Durham's citizens and law enforcement agencies are.

Local police have invited the Federal Bureau of
Investigation to help investigate the incidents and
find the perpetrators, and the feds have agreed to
come.

And almost immediately, citizens registered their
revulsion at the acts. Three vigils were quickly
organized for Thursday night at the site of the
cross-burnings. Durham may have its racial tensions,
as all cities do, but this is not a place that takes
kindly to acts of hatred.

At best, the burning crosses were the work of ignorant
pranksters. At worst, they are the work of unrepentant
racists stuck in a time warp.

But while the incidents must be taken seriously, no
one should give them too much power. It is no sign of
a future trend. We have come too far since Jim Crow to
be intimidated into retreating now -- by anyone.