Excerpt from Church Burnings: Hearing Before the Committee on the Judiciary United States Senate, One Hundred Fourth Congress, Second Session on the Federal Response to Recent Incidents of Church Burnings in Predominantly Black Churches Across the South, June 27, 1996<br><br>This morning, the Judiciary Committee will hear testimony con cerning a very disturbing series of church burnings, many of which involve identifiably black churches. The role of black churches in the black community and in American history cannot be over stated, nor can it be succinctly described.<br><br>Not only houses of God tending to the spiritual and cultural needs of their parishioners, not only refuges from oppression and indignity in the wider society through the centuries, black churches were often, in the words of Rev. Jesse Jackson, railroad station[s] and so often the pastor was the conductor, in the underground railroad for slaves escaping bondage. More recently, black churches served as command centers and outposts in a great movement for civil rights which has benefited every individual American.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.