Why are black churches burning again?

The FBI has launched an investigation after seven historically black churches were burned down in southern states in the wake of the shooting in Charleston.

Churches have gone up in flames in in Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina and Tennessee, and while no-one has been hurt, many of the churches have been completely destroyed.

Three of the fires were arson attacks, one was caused by a falling branch and an electric fault, and the others remain under investigation, reports Time Magazine.

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Yesterday Mt Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church was set ablaze in South Carolina, on the same day that the Klu Klux Klan announced that it would be holding a cross-burning rally in the state capitol later this month in support of the controversial Confederate battle flag, reports Reuters.

The cause of some of the fires has not yet been determined, but asked if they were connected, Mark Keel, chief of the State Law Enforcement Division in South Carolina, told the local press: "Certainly, I think we all are concerned about those things.

Members of the black community in the South insist the fires are no coincidence. "I guess they need a note left behind 'Hey. It's us. Racists. We're burning black churches', before these fires are hate crimes," tweeted Nichole from Nashville.

Though the cause of some of the blazes remains uncertain, they still "evoked a painful history that still haunts African American congregations", says the Washington Post.

Black churches have historically been targets for racial violence and such attacks represent centuries of opposition to civil rights in America, particularly in the South.

The most infamous attack on black churches occurred in Alabama in 1963, when the Klu Klux Klan lit sticks of dynamite under a church, killing four young girls and injuring nearly two dozen more. Martin Luther King Jr called the attack "one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity".

The reason black churches continue to be targeted is because they will always remain "a symbol of hope in the darkness of American racism", says the Post.