The burnings of Black Lives Matter banners at historic Black churches is Washington, D.C., are being investigated as possible hate crimes. Banners were burned at Asbury United Methodist Church and Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. ”It pained me especially to see our name, Asbury, in flames,” the Rev. Ianther Mills, senior pastor at Asbury, said. “For me it was reminiscent of cross burnings.”
”White supremacists are tearing down and burning Black Lives Matter signs from churches. These are acts of both racial terror and religious violence,” Yolanda Pierce, dean of the Howard University School of Divinity, tweeted. She continued, “Burning Black Lives Matter signs ripped from churches is an explicit threat to the sanctity of the Black church and to Black lives and freedom, even if the church itself is not historically Black.”
