The Greensboro massacre is a term for an event that took place on 3 November 1979, when members of the Communist Labor Party and others showed in "Death to the Clan" marching in Greensboro, North Carolina, USA. The CWP, which advocates that Clan members should be "beaten and physically expelled from the city", was involved in an exchange of fire with members of the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi Party of America. Four members of the Communist Workers Party, and one other person were killed and eleven other demonstrators and one clan member was injured. CWP supports worker rights activism among most of the black textile industry workers in the area.
Two criminal trials of several Klansmen and ANP members were committed: six people were prosecuted in state criminal trials in 1980, five were accused of murder. All were freed. The second trial, the federal criminal rights tribunal in 1984 ended with the release of nine defendants. In the first trial, the jury concluded that the defendants acted in self-defense. In the second trial, the jury concluded that the defendant's actions were based on political motivation, not race.
The survivors filed a civil suit in 1980, led by Christic Institute. The case in federal district court accused a number of police and four federal agents, as well as Klan and ANP members, violate the civil rights of those killed, and it also accused the city of failing to protect legal demonstrations. The jury found the Clan/Nazi shooter responsible for the death of Michael Nathan, the only non-CWP victim. The jury also deployed the Greensboro Police Department responsible for failing to do more to prevent the shootings, being told by an informant that the KKK was planning violence. These groups are ordered to pay a total of $ 350,000 in damages. This is one of the few times in US history when "a jury holds the local police responsible for cooperating with the Ku Klux Klan in the wrongful death."
In November 2004, marking the 25th anniversary of the murder, about 700 people marched through Greensboro to the town hall, on the original route. That year, civilians organized the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was modeled after commissions in South Africa and elsewhere. The goal was to investigate and hear testimony of the events of 1979. The organization failed to secure local authorities or sanctions when the mayor and most of the City Council voted against supporting the effort. It has no subpoena power to impose testimony, and the ability to invoke the punishment of perjury for false testimony. The Commission issued its Final Report concluding that, while both sides have contributed to the massacre by engaging in heated rhetoric, Clan members and the ANP intend to inflict injuries on the protesters, and the police department has colluded with the Clan by allowing anticipated violence to be taken. In 2009, the Greensboro City Council passed a resolution expressing remorse for the death. In 2015, the city launched a historical marker to recognize the Greensboro Massacre. Three hundred people attended the ceremony. On August 15, 2017, the Greensboro City Council apologized for the massacre.
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The Communist Workers Party (CWP), which follows Mao Zedong's policy, originated in 1973 in New York as a splinter group of the United States Communist Party. "The CWP is one of several groups formed as part of the Maoist revival in the radical community.For the Maoists, the pro-Soviet Soviet Communist Party is considered soft against capitalism and has no militancy." Its leaders aim to increase activism in what they call the Worker Organization (WVO), along the Maoist model. In 1979, CWP members came to North Carolina in an effort to organize the textile workers. In the South, the communists had achieved little success with white workers, so they turned their attention to black textile workers. These efforts led CWP to conflict with local Ku Klux Klan chapters, and the Nazi Party of America. Some CWP members work personally in textile factories, including James Waller, who abandoned his medical practice to do so. He became president of a local textile union. WVO members are active in Durham and Greensboro.
WVO pushes back against racial discrimination in North Carolina by facing the local Ku Klux Klan chapter. Hostilities between groups flared up in July 1979, when protesters in China Grove, North Carolina, interrupted the screening of the Birth of the Nations, a 1915 silent film by DW Griffith depicting the era of Reconstruction and the Ku Klux formation The clan is heroic, and describes blacks in a patronizing racist manner. Inflammatory allegations and rhetoric are exchanged between group members during the following months.
In October 1979, WVO changed its name to the Communist Workers Organization. His plan was to hold a rally and march against the Klan on November 3, 1979, in Greensboro. This is the county territory of Guilford County and has been the site of major civil rights acts in the 1960s, beginning with seats that resulted in the desegregation of the lunch counter. Called "Death to the Clan March" by CWP, the show is scheduled to start in a predominantly black housing project called Morningside House on the city's black side and from there it will proceed to Greensboro Town Hall. The Communist Workers Party distributed leaflets "calling for radical, even violent opposition to the Klan". One of the pilots said that the Clan "must be physically beaten and expelled from the city - this is the only language they understand." Armed defense is the only defense. Communist organizers openly challenge the Klan to present itself and "face the wrath of the people".
Maps Greensboro massacre
Rally
Four teams of local TV news cameras arrived at Morningside House on the corner of Carver and Everitt to close the protest marches. CWP members and other anti-clan supporters gathered to rally a rally, which is planned to continue through town to the Greensboro City Hall.
When the demonstrators gathered, a caravan of ten cars (and a van) filled with about 40 KKK members and the American Nazi Party drove in front of a housing project. Some demonstrators beat cars with picket sticks or throw stones at them. In response, KKK members and ANPs got out of their cars, took guns, rifles and pistols from suitcases, and fired on a crowd of demonstrators. The last few were armed with pistols, which they fired during a brief conflict. It is not clear who fired the first shot. The Witness reported that KKK member Mark Sherer fired the first shot, into the air. According to white supremacy Frazier Glenn Miller, the first shot was fired from the gun by anti-clan protesters.
KKK members and the American Nazi Party quickly killed Cesar Cauce, James Waller, and Bill Sampson at the scene. Smith's password was shot between his eyes as he looked out of the place where he was taking shelter, and eleven other people were injured. Michael Nathan died of his injuries at the hospital. The coverage of the shootings was done on national and international news. This is known as the "Greensboro Massacre." Black Smith, Hispanic Cauce, and three other men who were white. Both blacks and whites were wounded.
Victim
Died: All but Michael Nathan is a member of the CWP and union leaders and administrators.
- Cesar Cauce, a Cuban immigrant who has graduated magna cum laude from Duke University, works in an anti-war movement, working as a union organizer in textile factories in North Carolina, and is the brother of Ana Mari Cauce, current president of the University of Washington;
- James Waller, elected president of a local textile union; originally taught at Duke University and is a co-founder of the Carolina Brown Lung Association (for textile workers); he has abandoned his medical practice to organize the textile workers;
- William Evan Sampson, a Harvard Divinity School graduate and a medical student active in civil rights; he worked to organize a union at one of Cone Mills's Greensboro textile factories;
- Sandra Neely Smith, a civil rights activist and president of the student body at Bennett Greensboro College; become a nurse and work to organize textile workers and improve health conditions in factories; and
- Michael Nathan, head of pediatrics at Lincoln Community Health Center, a clinic for children from low-income families in Durham, North Carolina. Wounded in the shooting, he died two days later at the hospital. He is not a member of the CWP but supports his wife, Dr. Marty Nathan, who.
Injured Victim:
- Paul Bermanzohn, CWP regulator and doctor, requires brain surgery, a paralyzed left hand;
- Tom Clark;
- Martha "Marty" Nathan, member and doctor of CWP, widow of Michael Nathan;
- Rev. Nelson Johnson, organizer and CWP member
- Jim Wrenn, who is critically wounded, requires brain surgery;
- Harold Flowers, a member of KKK, shot in the left arm and leg.
Police role
By the late 1970s, most police departments had grown accustomed to handling demonstrations, especially in cities like Greensboro where many civil rights events have occurred since 1960. CWP parade organizers have submitted their plans for this march with police and obtain permission to hold me t. The police generally cover such formal events to prevent the outbreak of violence; several officers were present during this parade. A police photographer and a detective followed the Klan and neo-Nazi caravans to the place, but they did not try to intervene in events.
Edward Dawson, a police informant who turned into a Klansman, was riding in the caravan's main car. He has been an FBI informant since 1969 as part of the agency's COINTELPRO program and was one of the founders of the North Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan when the North Carolina chapter of the United Klan of America was split. In 1979 he worked as an informant for the Greensboro Police Department. He was given a copy of the route traveled by the police and informed them of potential violence. Since the police were absent, the attackers fled relatively easily.
Bernard Butkovich, secret agent for the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Weapons (ATF), has infiltrated the unit of the Nazi Party of America (ANP) during this period. The group was formed by Frank Collin, who had been ousted from the National White People's Socialist Party. ANP members joined the KKK chapter to disrupt the November 1979 protest march. In the 1980 criminal proceedings, the neo-Nazis claimed that Butkovich encouraged them to bring firearms to the demonstrations. In the 1985 civil trial, Butkovich testified that he was aware that Klan members and members of the ANP were intending to confront the demonstrators; he did not notify the police or other law enforcement agencies.
Aftermath
The funeral was held on November 11, 1979, followed by a procession where 200-400 people marched through the city to Maplewood Cemetery. There is controversy over whether the funeral should be held or not, but the city has set full coverage by the police and hundreds of armed National Guard troops.
Gravestone
The four white men were buried in a black all-black cemetery near Morningside. The inscriptions meant for their warning were initially opposed by the city council, citing new ordinances that prohibit political speech in that context. With the support of ACLU North Carolina they were able to move forward a year later, commemorating the falling with the following message:
On 3 November 1979 the criminal monopoly capitalist class killed Jim Waller, CÃÆ'Ã… © sar Cauce, Mike Nathan, Bill Sampson, and Sandi Smith with government, clan, and Nazi agents. Brave defending the people, 5 shots fired with boxing and empty sticks. We promise this murder will be the most expensive mistake ever made by the capitalist, and the turning point of the class struggle in the US.
CWP 5 is one of the strongest leaders of their time. Their deaths marked the end of capitalist stabilization (1950s-1970s) when American workers suffered untold misery, but on the whole remained inactive because of the lack of their own leaders. In 1980 the deepest capitalist crisis began. The working class is on the rise. CWP 5 lives and dies for all workers, minorities, and poor; for a world where exploitation and oppression will be eliminated, and all human beings are liberated; for the noble cause of communism. Their death, a tremendous loss for CWP and their families, is a loud call for US people to fight for workers' power. In their step, the revolutionary wave will rise and join our ranks.
We will overthrow the rule of the monopoly capitalist class! Victory will be ours!
3 November 1980 Komite Sentral, CWP, AS
FIGHT FOR REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM AND RULES OF WORKERS.
Sandi Smith's corpse, the only black victim, was returned to his hometown of South Carolina at the request of his family.
Legal process
The Greensboro Judicial Fund was established by the families of victims and their supporters shortly after 3 November 1979, to support public litigation and education in relation to civil rights events and violations. Members of the Board of Directors are: Phillip Berrigan, anti-war activist; Pdt. Ben Chavis, United Church of Christ, member of Wilmington 10; Michio Kaku, PhD., Nuclear physicist and anti-nuke activist; Elizabeth McAlister, anti-war activist; Martha Nathan, MD, widow of Dr. Michael Nathan, among the five dead; Neil Prose, MD, occupational health and safety activist; and Phil Thompson, CWP. Dr. Prose is the first national executive director of Justice Fund, and Dr. "Marty" Nathan succeeded him.
The Justice Fund retains civil rights lawyers to file lawsuits on behalf of the victims. They filed a Complaint with the Federal Civil Rights Act at the Federal District Court in Greensboro in November 1980. The legal team at the time consisted of:
- Carolyn McAllaster, N.C. Member of United Civil Liberties Union, Thompson & amp; McAllaster, Durham, N.C.
- Dennis Cunningham, principal lawyer in 1970 Fred Hampton guilty of civil lawsuits (finally concluded and finalized by the City of Chicago in 1982), Law Firm, Chicago, Illinois
- And Sheehan, the main lawyer in the Karen Silkwood suit, and Lewis Pitts, both with Christic Institute, Washington, D.C.
- Susan Sturm, National Office of the ACLU, New York, New York
- James McNamara, Klan/Nazi history expert, Ohio
- Stewart Kwoh and Thomas Ono, Kwoh & amp; Ono, Los Angeles, California
- Eugene Scheiman, Baer Marks & amp; Upham, New York, New York
- Gayle Korotkin and Earle Tockman, Greensboro Justice Fund, Greensboro
State prosecution
Forty Klansmen and neo-Nazis, and some CWP demonstrators are said to have taken part in the shootings. Police arrested 16 Klansmen and Nazis, and some CWP members. The FBI started an investigation called GREENKIL (Greensboro Murder), reversing the evidence collected to the state of North Carolina for murder trial. The state prosecutor demanded the first six most powerful crimes, accusing five Klansmen with murder: David Wayne Matthews, Jerry Paul Smith, Jack Wilson Fowler, Harold Dean Flowers, and Billy Joe Franklin. One is accused of a lesser crime. In November 1980, a white jury freed all the defendants, on the request of their defense. Residents of Morningside House - a housing development where violence occurred, and students at the North Carolina State Agricultural and Technical University (A & T), expressed shock and anger over the verdict and feelings of despair about the judicial system and the Ku Klux Klan.
Federal criminal court
The Department of Justice through the FBI has conducted extensive criminal investigations. After his release in 1980, the FBI reopened its investigation in preparation for federal prosecution. Based on additional evidence, the federal jury indicted nine men for alleged civil rights in 1983.
During this second criminal trial, US prosecutors demanded nine people. Under civil rights law, "It accuses the Klan and the Nazis with violence that is motivated by race and by interfering in a racially integrated event." Three people are accused of violating the civil rights of the five victims: the defendants are David Wayne Matthews, Jerry Paul Smith and Jack Wilson Fowler, who have been charged and released in state criminal proceedings.
Six others were accused of "conspiring to violate the civil rights of protesters:" Virgil Lee Griffin, Sr.; Eddie Dawson (also a police informant), Roland Wayne Wood, Roy Clinton Toney, Coleman Blair Pridmore, and Rayford Milano Caudle In April 1984, all defendants were released. The CWP believes that the indictment is made too narrow, providing an opportunity for defense to argue that the political opposition to Communism, rather than racial motivation, fosters confrontation. Both trials "investigate the actions of Federal agents or the Greensboro police."
Waller v. Butkovich
In 1980, survivors filed a civil suit in the Federal District Court, seeking $ 48 million in damages. The Christic Institute leads a legal effort. The complaint alleges that law enforcement officials know "that the Klan and the Nazis will use force to disrupt demonstrations by communist labor organizers and blacks of Greensboro but deliberately fail to protect them." Four federal agents are named as defendants in the lawsuit, in addition to 36 Greensboro police and city officials, and 20 Klansmen and members of the American Nazi Party. Among the federal defendants was Bernard Butkovich of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, who had worked as a secret agent in 1979 and infiltrated one of the American Nazi Party chapters about three months before the protests. He testified that a Clan member had been mentioned at a planning meeting to use a pipe bomb for possible attacks at a rally, and that he did not take any further action.
The legal team of Christic is led by lawyers Lewis Pitts and Daniel Sheehan, along with Law Office lawyer G. Flint Taylor and attorney Carolyn MacAllister from Durham, North Carolina. The Federal Jury in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, found two Klansmen, three Nazis, two Greensboro police officers, and a police informant responsible for the wrongful death of Dr. Michael Nathan, a non-CWP demonstrator, and because of injuries to survivors. Bermanzohn and Tom Clark, who were wounded. It gave two survivors with a $ 350,000 assessment of the city, the Ku Klux Klan, and the American Nazi Party for violating the civil rights of the demonstrators. Widow Dr. Martha "Marty" Nathan, paid by City to cover damage caused by KKK and ANP as well. He chose to donate some money to grassroots efforts for social justice and education.
25th anniversary
CWP is gradually disbanded, and its members proceed to other activities. In November 2004, nearly 700 people, including some survivors, marched in Greensboro along the planned route from the housing project to Greensboro Town Hall to mark the 25th anniversary of the event.
That year, a group of civilians established the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission. They appealed to the Mayor and City Council for their endorsement, but failed to gain support. The Greensboro City Council, led by mayor Keith Holliday, voted 6 to 3 to support the group's work. The three African-American Council members voted in favor of the action. The mayor at the time of the massacre, Jim Melvin, also rejected the private commission.
The private group announced that the Commission would take public testimony and conduct an investigation, to examine the causes and consequences of the massacre. It is patterned after the official Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which is generally organized by the national government, as it was done in post-apartheid South Africa. But the Greensboro commission has no official recognition and authority. It does not have the power of a subpoena to impose a testimony, and the ability to request false vows for false testimony.
The Commission reports its findings and conclusions. He noted that both the Communist Workers Party and the Clans contributed to varying degrees of violence, especially given the violent rhetoric they had held for months ahead of the parade confrontation. It is said that the protesters, most of whom are not living in Greensboro or the county, have not fully gained the support of the residents of Morningside House to hold an event there. Many of the residents did not approve of the protests because they feared it had the risk of catalyzing violence on their doorsteps. The Commission concluded that KKK and ANP members went to rallies intent on provoking violent confrontations, and that they fired on demonstrators with the intent of injury.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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