FBI to Probe Fire at Alabama School Involved in Racial Flap

WEDOWEE, Ala. —  An apparent arson fire left a school in smoldering ruins Saturday and stoked tensions in a dispute over the principal who opposed interracial couples at a prom.

The fire gutted all of the Randolph County High School classrooms only hours before marchers planned to form ranks for new protests targeting Principal Hulond Humphries.

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno ordered the FBI to investigate, Justice Department spokesman Myron Marlin said Saturday night.

Blacks seeking to oust Humphries, who’s white, canceled a protest march as tensions mounted and Ku Klux Klan members arrived in the east Alabama town.

But tempers had already flared.

Humphries shoved a black TV cameraman at the fire scene. “Why don’t you get out of here?” he told Bill Gill of WVTM in Birmingham.

The camera captured the moment and recorded the approach of other men with Humphries, one of whom placed his hand on the lens and shoved. An unidentified voice is heard telling Gill: “You black sons of bitches burned this school.”

Investigators were “99%” certain the early-morning blaze was arson, Sheriff Larry Colley said.

Later, it was Colley who grew angry with media attention to about 30 would-be marchers as they held hands, prayed and sang “We Shall Overcome.”

“Where were you people this morning when Hulond Humphries was out there fighting that fire with his bare hands?” Colley said. “Where were these damn blacks?”

A new march was set for Aug. 20, said the Rev. Henry Sterling of the Leadership Conference.

Humphries’ status has divided Wedowee, mostly along racial lines, since he told students in a Feb. 24 assembly that the prom would not be held because some interracial couples planned to attend.