Lest you think that violence and hate crimes against African Americans occur only in other places, such as Charleston, S.C., think again, my fellow San Franciscans.

A hate crime against an African American church occurred right here when St. Paul Tabernacle Baptist Church in the Bayview District was vandalized late Aug. 27 or early Aug. 28. The church has served the San Francisco community for the past 23 years. Most of the 125 churchgoers reside in the Bayview and Hunters Point. Some live in the Western Addition.

Raj Vaswani, captain of the San Francisco Police Department’s Bayview Station, said “We want to give full support to the people who go there. It’s traumatic, what happened at the church. The church is hurt; the people who go there, their operations. It is a hate crime.”

Vandals broke into the church, spray painted the walls with racist, homophobic and religious graffiti, gouged the church interior’s walls, ripped and poured bleach on the pew cushions, and damaged furniture and computer equipment. Two large mirrors behind the pulpit were smashed. The pulpit was defaced with paint. The pastor’s office was vandalized.

Officer Alvie Esparza, a spokesman for the San Francisco Police Department, said, “We will look for the individual or individuals who vandalized this church. When we find that person or the people involved, we will arrest them. This type of behavior is not condoned in San Francisco.”

Willie Fenroy, a deacon, said the church had never been attacked before. Beverly Taylor, a deaconess, said, “The attack on our church, that’s the devil at work. The building does not belong to us. It’s the Lord’s house. They attacked the Lord when they attacked the Lord’s house. In the Scriptures, the Lord says, ‘A weapon used against me will never stand. I will repay them.’”

Taylor also said that the vandalism forced the church to suspend its food pantry work, one of its ministries. “The Lord will help us to reopen the food pantry,” Taylor stated with conviction.

I call on my fellow San Franciscans to confront and address racism in our own backyard, and to do what you can to aid our sisters and brothers at St. Paul Tabernacle.

Anh Lê has worked in the African American, Vietnamese American and other communities in San Francisco and the Bay Area for many years.

What to do

Ask law enforcement officials to address the vandalism and bring the perpetrators to justice.

Call on the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. attorney’s office and the FBI to investigate this hate crime.

Request the city of San Francisco install security and surveillance cameras on the streets near churches.

Call on our faith leaders — Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist — and San Franciscans of all ethnicities, races and socioeconomic backgrounds to declare that we stand with our sisters and brothers at St. Paul Tabernacle and that we will not tolerate any act of hate crime or violence.

Urge our fellow San Franciscans to help St. Paul Tabernacle Baptist Church with the repairs so it can carry on its ministry. A work party is being planned for Sept. 12.