After Notre-Dame blaze, GoFundMe for historically black churches destroyed by arson gets attention

Within hours after firefighters extinguished the catastrophic blaze at Notre-Dame Cathedral, people around the world had already pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild the historic site. That included commitments from French businessman François-Henri Pinault, the L’Oreal cosmetics company, and Apple CEO Tim Cook, who said the Silicon Valley company would make a donation.

The massive financial support for Notre-Dame prompted journalist Yashar Ali, who has nearly 400,000 followers on Twitter, to point people toward another worthy cause: rebuilding three historically black churches in Louisiana that were recently destroyed by arson.

"The rebuild of Notre Dame will be well funded," Ali wrote in a tweet. "In the past month, three historically black churches in Louisiana were destroyed by a racist arsonist. He has been charged with hate crimes, but these churches need your help. Please join me in donating[.]"

Ali linked to a GoFundMe launched April 10 by the Seventh District Baptist Association, a nonprofit religious organization to which the three gutted churches belong. Ali said he donated $1,000 to the campaign.

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The churches served as the "spiritual homes of generations of black families" for more than a century, according to the New York Times.

Authorities charged a 21-year-old son of a Louisiana deputy sheriff with arson and hate crimes; he pleaded not guilty.

The GoFundMe had received attention and donations, including from former New Orleans Saints player Benjamin Watson, but contributions surged Tuesday morning. Soon after Ali's first tweet, he said that GoFundMe would match $1,000 donations to the campaign.

Actress Busy Phillips and Late Night host Seth Meyers said they made $1,000 contributions. At the time of this story's publication, the campaign had raised $347,000 of its $1.8 million goal.

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The Seventh District Baptist Association said donations would be disbursed equally amongst the churches to aid with rebuilding as well as replacing items like pews, sound systems, and musical instruments.

In a video update posted to the GoFundMe campaign Tuesday, Gerald Toussaint, pastor of one of the affected churches, expressed his gratitude for the financial support.

"I can't thank you enough," he said. "If I had 10,000 tongues, I couldn't thank you enough. God bless you."