Another black church in South Carolina burns; cause unknown

The fire at the Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal church in Greeleyville broke out at a time when federal authorities are investigating conflagrations at several other predominantly black churches — including one Friday at a church near Aiken, South Carolina — but so far the fires don't appear to be related.

Greeleyville is a town of about 400 people around 50 miles north of Charleston, where a pastor and eight members of a historic black church were fatally shot on June 17 in what authorities are investigating as a hate crime.

All of the fires currently under investigation broke out days after the fatal shootings at Charleston's historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Dylann Storm Roof has been charged with nine counts of murder in the shootings, and the FBI is investigating possible links between the 21-year-old white man and a hate manifesto that showed up online along with photos of him.

Speaking at the church in 1996, President Bill Clinton implored people not to respond to what was a string of nearly three dozen church fires — many of them racially motivated — with the same hatred that drove the people who started the blazes.