JACKSON, Miss. — The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has apologized to a Southern Baptist congregation and the Salvation Army after a FEMA photographer asked a couple of volunteers to change their T-shirts for an interview.
Angelia Lott and Pamela Wedgeworth, members of a small rural church in Mississippi, were helping clean up debris from a tornado that left a 149-mile path of destruction through the state in April.
The women were working in partnership with Crossgates Baptist Church, Brandon, Miss., a Southern Baptist congregation, and were wearing T-shirts with the Salvation Army logo on them.
When a FEMA photographer approached them to request an interview, he made clear the logos were unacceptable.
“He said, ‘We would like to ask you to change your shirt because we don’t want anything faith-based,’” Lott recounted May 18.
Craig Fugate, a FEMA administrator, released a statement apologizing for the photographer’s actions, saying they “in no way reflect FEMA’s policies or priorities.”
“The photographer in question was absolutely wrong,” Fugate said, according to The Associated Press.
Fugate apologized specifically to Crossgates Baptist and to the Salvation Army. He also called U.S. Rep. Gregg Harper, R-Miss., who is a member of Crossgates, to assure him that FEMA does not discriminate against religious groups.
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