Greensboro massacre

The Greensboro massacre was a deadly confrontation that occurred on November 3, 1979, in Greensboro, North Carolina, when members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and National Socialist Party of America (NSPA) shot and killed five demonstrators in a "Death to the Klan" march organized by the Communist Workers Party (CWP).

The incident was preceded by inflammatory rhetoric and threats of violence, and marked a convergence of the KKK and American neo-Nazi movements, which had previously operated separately. In addition, nine other anti-Klan demonstrators, two journalists, and a Klansman were wounded.

In the ensuing criminal trials, the KKK and NSPA defendants were acquitted by all-white juries that were selected partly on the strength of their anti-communist views. At the federal criminal civil rights trial in 1984, the defendants claimed they had acted in self-defense, despite reports of "vivid newsreel film to the contrary," and were acquitted.

Decades later, the Greensboro City Council formally apologized for the deaths. it concluded that both sides contributed to the tragedy, but that the Klan and NSPA members intended to inflict injury on protesters, and that the police bore significant responsibility for allowing the violence to take place. In 2015, Greensboro unveiled a marker to memorialize the massacre.

Background

The Communist Workers' Party (CWP) had its origin in 1973 in New York as a Marxist formation originally known as the Workers Viewpoint Organization (WVO). The WVO was one of several groups established as part of a trend within the American left known as the new communist movement. These groups formed in the wake of the anti-Vietnam War protests, as young Marxist radicals joined with activists from the more militant elements of the black liberation movement. They rejected the old, pro-Soviet Communist Party USA as soft on capitalism, and studied the leaders and revolutionary movements in the developing world, including communist China. They opposed racism and sexism, and saw organizing multi-racial unions as a strategy for building toward a popular socialist uprising against monopoly capitalism.

In 1976, members of the WVO came to North Carolina and recruited local Black and white activists in Greensboro and Durham who were engaged in healthcare and textile organizing. The WVO members took jobs in the local textile and other manufacturing plants in an attempt to organize workers into unions. Among WVO members who worked in the textile mills was James Waller, who left his medical career to be a full-time organizer. He became president of the local textile workers' unions at Cone's Granite Finishing Plant in Haw River, North Carolina. In the Carolina Piedmont, the communists found some success with both white and Black textile workers, but especially among black workers, who had been excluded from these jobs for decades, and had only recently been hired for mill work since the passing of the federal Equal Employment Opportunities Act in 1972. WVO members were also active in Durham, Kannapolis, and Greensboro. Taunts and inflammatory rhetoric were exchanged between members of the groups during the ensuing months.

In October 1979, the WVO renamed itself the Communist Workers Organization. It planned to stage a rally and march against the Klan on November 3, 1979, in the city of Greensboro, the county seat of Guilford County. The city had been a site of major civil rights actions in the 1960s; sit-ins there resulted in the desegregation of lunch counters.

The CWP publicized their protest as the "Death to the Klan" March. The event was scheduled to start in a predominantly black Greensboro housing project, known as Morningside Homes, and then proceed to a community center for a conference. The CWP distributed flyers that called for radical, even violent opposition to the Klan.

Rally

Four local TV news camera teams arrived at Morningside Homes at the corner of Carver and Everitt streets to cover the protest march. Members of the CWP and other anti-Klan supporters gathered to rally and march. As the marchers gathered, a caravan of nine cars and a van filled with an estimated 40 KKK and American Nazi Party members drove in front of the housing project at around 11:20 AM. The two groups heckled each other, and some marchers beat the cars with picket sticks and kicks. The first shot came from the head of the KKK caravan. Several witnesses reported that Klansman Mark Sherer fired first, which he later admitted. A "thick blue smoke" was spotted after the first shot, consistent with the discharge from a black powder pistol Sherer owned. A second shot was fired into the air by Klansman Brent Fletcher, and shots three and four by Sherer, into the ground and a parked car. The filmed coverage of the shootings was carried on national and international news, and the event became known as the "Greensboro Massacre." Smith was black, Cauce was Cuban-American, and the other three men killed were white, two of them Jewish. Both blacks and whites were among the wounded, including one KKK member and two news crew members.

Casualties

Died: All but Michael Nathan were CWP members and rank-and-file union leaders and organizers. Nathan was sworn into the CWP on his deathbed.

Thomas Clark, marcher;
Martha "Marty" Nathan, CWP member and physician, widow of Michael Nathan;
Nelson Johnson, organizer and CWP member;
Don Pelles, marcher, struck by birdshot in face;
Rand Manzella, marcher;
Harold Flowers, KKK member, shot in the arm and left leg;
Matt Sinclair, WTVD reporter, struck by birdshot; and

Edward Dawson, a Klansman-turned FBI/police informant was riding in the lead car of the caravan. The permit specified the requirement that the marchers be unarmed. The morning of the shooting, Dawson notified the police that the Klan was prepared for armed violence, and that a caravan of nine cars of Klan and Nazis with firearms was approaching the marchers gathered at the corner of Everitt and Carver Streets, the site of the Morningside Homes housing project.

Aftermath

Funeral

A funeral march for the five victims was held in Greensboro on November 11, 1979. The funeral was preceded by a procession in which 500 people marched with the coffins of four of the victims through the city to Maplewood Cemetery. The body of Sandra Smith was returned at her family's request to her hometown in South Carolina for burial. There was controversy over whether the funeral should be allowed, and in the end, the city arranged for the deployment of hundreds of armed National Guard troops to back up local police. The city declared a state of emergency, and roadblocks prevented many marchers from entering the city. Every car entering the city was searched at roadblocks and 35 CWP members and supporters were arrested. Photographs and film footage of the event show helicopters and National Guard armed personnel carriers, along with armed police and Guardsmen, flanking the marchers and lining the route of the procession.

Federal criminal trial

The Department of Justice through the FBI had an extensive criminal investigation underway.

The case brought by the US attorney "charged the Klansmen and neo-Nazis with racially motivated violence and with interference in a racially integrated event." and Rayford Milano Caudle

Neither trial investigated the actions of federal agents or the Greensboro police. On April 15, 1984, all nine defendants were acquitted. The government had a burden to prove the defendants were motivated by racial hatred in order to bring them to federal charges. The CWP believed that the indictment was drawn too narrowly, giving the defense an opportunity to argue that political opposition to communism and patriotic fervor, rather than racial animus, prompted the confrontation.

Waller v. Butkovich

CWP survivors had also filed a civil suit in Federal District Court, seeking $48 million in damages. The complaint alleged that law-enforcement officials knew "that Klansmen and Nazis would use violence to disrupt the demonstration by Communist labor organizers and black residents of Greensboro but deliberately failed to protect them." and Daniel Sheehan, together with People's Law Office attorney G. Flint Taylor and attorney Carolyn McAllaster of Durham, North Carolina. A federal jury in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, found two Klansmen, three neo-Nazis, two Greensboro police officers, and a police informant liable for the wrongful death of Michael Nathan and for injuries to survivors Paul Bermanzohn and Tom Clark. The entire judgment was paid by the city of Greensboro in order to cover damages caused by the KKK and NSPA as well. Nathan's family and the two survivors chose to donate most of the money to the Greensboro Justice Fund, a foundation created in memory of the five victims, which distributed small grants to organizations involved in grassroots efforts for social justice and education. The private group announced that the Commission would take public testimony and conduct an investigation in order to examine the causes and consequences of the massacre. The GTRC was patterned after other truth and reconciliation commissions, notably the one conducted in post-apartheid South Africa.

The organizers appealed to the Mayor and the City Council for their endorsement, but failed to gain support. The Greensboro City Council, led by Mayor Keith Holliday, voted six to three against endorsing the work of the group. The three African-American members of the Council voted in favor of the measure. The mayor at the time of the massacre, Jim Melvin, also rejected the private commission. "The mandate of the Commission was decidedly specific – no matter how painful it might prove to be, its core mission would be to reveal and disseminate the truth."

Findings and conclusions

In May 2006, after two years of community meetings, public testimony, individual interviews and documentary research, the seven commissioners reported their findings and conclusions. It noted that both the Communist Workers Party and the Klan contributed in varying degrees to the violence, especially given the violent rhetoric they were espousing for months leading up to the confrontation at the march. The report asserted that the CWP did not intend to use handguns for anything other than self-defense. It said that the protesters had not fully secured the community support of the Morningside Homes residents for holding the event there. Many of the residents did not approve of the protest because they feared it had the risk of catalyzing violence on their doorsteps. The commission concluded that the KKK and NSPA members went to the rally intending to provoke a violent confrontation, and that they fired on demonstrators with intent to injure

In its final report, the Commission stressed the importance of the Greensboro Police Department's absence from the scene. The police presence at previous confrontations between the same groups had resulted in no violence. There was testimony before the commission that the GPD had infiltrated the Klan and, through a paid informant, knew of the white supremacists' plans and the strong potential for violence that day. The informant had formerly been on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's payroll and maintained contact with his agent's supervisor. Consequently, the FBI was also aware of the impending armed confrontation, although they repeatedly denied any prior knowledge. The commission reported that at least one activist in the crowd fired back after the attack started.

The Commission reflected on the disproportionate antagonism evidenced by the police toward the CWP activists compared to their attitude toward the Klan and NSPA: "This fear of vocal black activists who advocated armed self-defense but who had no criminal record other than disorderly conduct, stands in stark contrast to the dismissal of the threat posed by Klansmen and Nazis who openly advocated and had a criminal record of committing racist violence," the report said.

City's recognition

On June 17, 2009, the City Council issued a "statement of regret" about the 1979 incident.
On May 24, 2015, the City of Greensboro officially unveiled a historical marker acknowledging the 1979 events, at a ceremony attended by more than 300 people. It reads: "Greensboro Massacre – Ku Klux Klansmen and American Nazi Party members, on Nov. 3, 1979, shot and killed five Communist Workers Party members one-tenth mile north." The city council had voted to approve the proposed state highway marker. Two city council members voted against the historical marker, explaining that they did not consider the event a "massacre".
On October 6, 2020, the city council approved a resolution apologizing for the incident.

In popular culture

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark recorded "88 Seconds in Greensboro" about the massacre.
Pop Will Eat Itself recorded "88 Seconds... & Still Counting" on the album Cure for Sanity also about the incident.
Saturday Night Live aired a sketch the following year titled "Commie Hunting Season" that made specific reference to the incident.

Notes

References

External links

Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Final Report (PDF). Examines the context, causes, sequence and consequences of Nov 3, 1979.

;Articles and news reports

"88 Seconds in Greensboro": Transcript, PBS Frontline. Reported by James Reston Jr. Directed by William Cran. Original Airdate: January 24, 1983.

;Anniversary news reports

Scott Mason and Kamal Wallace, "Greensboro Set To Mark Deadly Anniversary: Five Killed, 11 Injured In 'Greensboro Massacre'", WRAL. Posted: 11:25 am EST November 3, 2003
"Remembering the 1979 Greensboro Massacre 25 years later" Broadcast by Democracy Now! on November 18, 2004

;Websites

Civil Rights Greensboro Library website and searchable database, University of North Carolina-Greensboro
Greensboro VOICES Contains oral histories pertaining to November 3, 1979
Greensboro Justice Fund Official website, established to aid survivors in litigation and to provide education about the massacre