STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
In this country, in Springfield, Massachusetts, a church named after Martin Luther King burned five years ago. Prosecutors called it a hate crime. Today is the first Martin Luther King Jr. holiday since the church was rebuilt. Leaders see a chance to focus on forgiveness and rebirth. From New England Public Media, Karen Brown takes us there.
(SOUNDBITE OF CLAPPING)
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Singing) This is the day. This is the day that the Lord has made.
KAREN BROWN, BYLINE: In December, three days after Christmas, the service at Martin Luther King Jr. Community Presbyterian Church started with the spiritual "This Is The Day." Here's Reverend Terrlyn Curry Avery.
TERRLYN CURRY AVERY: So just breathe in for a moment this space that we are sitting in, where five years ago something sought to take us out and to silence our voice, but here we stand.
BROWN: On December 28, 2020, parishioners woke up to the news that their church, which opened in 1979, was burning. Lisa Baker, a church elder, remembers rushing to the building.
LISA BAKER: And when I came here, I could still see the flames. And it was surreal.
BROWN: Investigators determined the cause was arson and the suspect, Dushko Vulchev, was a white supremacist from Maine. He's in federal custody. No one was hurt, and at the time, services were already on Zoom due to COVID, but Curry Avery says it was still a gut punch.
CURRY AVERY: You know, we had to just kind of sit with the hurt of a faith community being burned down.
BROWN: The pain came not just from this fire but decades of hate crimes against Black churches, from the 1963 Birmingham bombing that killed four girls to another arson in Springfield in 2008 to the massacre at a Charleston, South Carolina, church a decade ago.
CURRY AVERY: I'm not saying that this was just another event because it was not. It was horrific and things that we still have to work through - the trauma of that. But I think because of the history in this country, because of the power and strength of our ancestors, that is what we leaned on to get through this.
(SOUNDBITE OF CLAPPING)
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Singing) Victory is mine. Victory is mine.
BROWN: That resilience, she says, helped the small congregation stay together as they rebuilt using insurance money, grants and donations. They held services in parking lots, community centers and other churches. In their new church building, the fire is still very much on their minds.
CURRY AVERY: Fire does not always come to destroy. Sometimes fire comes to reveal, refine and compel.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Amen.
BROWN: The legal process has been lengthy as prosecutors pursue hate crime charges. Parishioners say they're hoping for a conviction but working on forgiveness.
CURRY AVERY: Amen. The doors of the church are open. Let us sing "I Need You To Survive."
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Singing) I need you.
BROWN: Amid the joy of reopening, Curry Avery does worry something bad could happen again, so they've increased security.
CURRY AVERY: But I'm not going to come in every Sunday and wonder if the person who's sitting in the back of the church is here to do harm. Faith is taking each step of the way, as Martin Luther King said, even when you can't see the stairwell in front of you, the next step.
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Singing) I need you to survive.
CURRY AVERY: Hallelujah.
BROWN: For Dr. King's birthday this year, the church was finally able to host a worship service in their own sanctuary, named after the man himself.
For NPR News, I'm Karen Brown in Springfield, Massachusetts.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I NEED YOU TO SURVIVE")
UNITING VOICES CHICAGO: (Singing) I pray for you. You pray for me. I love you. I need you to survive. I... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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