Two historic Black churches in Washington DC were attacked during pro-Trump rallies last Saturday. Videos posted on Twitter show a group of people identified as Proud Boys marching with a Black Lives Matter banner held above their heads, then cheering as it is set on fire. The banner was taken from Asbury United Methodist Church, one of the oldest Black churches in the city, having been established in 1836.
“Last night demonstrators who were part of the MAGA gatherings tore down our Black Lives Matter sign and literally burned it in the street,” the Rev. Ianther M. Mills, the church’s senior pastor, said in a statement. “It pained me especially to see our name, Asbury, in flames. For me it was reminiscent of cross burnings.”
Another video, posted by @BGOnTheScene, shows protesters trespassing on private property and then tearing down a Black Lives Matter sign from in front of Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. The group is heard chanting, “Whose streets? Our streets!” as they destroy the sign in front of the church where worshipers have included historic leaders, such as Frederick Douglass and U.S. Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and William Howard Taft. In a powerful editorial in the Washington Post, pastor William H. Lamar IV wrote:
The Black Lives Matter banner in front of Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, where I am privileged to serve as pastor, was removed and destroyed on Saturday evening. I am deeply disturbed by this incident (one of several incidents targeting houses of worship), but I am more disturbed by the continued mythology of imperial America. This mythology supports those who commit violence against human beings for political ends, deny citizens their right to vote, denigrate sacred spaces and claim as their own whatever they survey.
It mattered not that the land was ours. It mattered not that the sign was ours. The mythology that motivated the perpetrators on Saturday night was the underbelly of the American narrative — that White men can employ violence to take what they want and do what they want and call their criminality justice, freedom and liberty.
There has been no recrimination from Trump or any Republicans. Yet, when black protesters take to the streets over injustices they have suffered for hundreds of years-- and engage in very similar behavior-- the calls from the GOP for prosecution and jail time are swift and sure.
D.C. Council member-elect Janeese Lewis George said the incident showed there are two justice systems in this country. “Tonight, violent white supremacists stole and burned a Black Lives Matter banner from Asbury United Methodist, the oldest Black Methodist church in DC,” she tweeted. “But yet no militarized police force [was] used against them. There are two justice systems in this country, separate and unequal.”
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