Learning from Greensboro

On November 3, 1979, in the Morningside neighborhood of Greensboro, North Carolina, a caravan of Ku Klux Klan and Nazi Party members arrived on the scene of an anti-Klan protest. After a scuffle, some of the Klan and Nazis opened fire on the mostly unarmed, racially mixed gathering of political activists, labor organizers, and children. While news cameras filmed, five protesters were killed and ten were wounded. Police officers were notably absent at the time of the attack. State and federal criminal trials resulted in acquittals of the shooters by all-white juries. The City of Greensboro consistently denied any responsibility for the events. In 2001, Greensboro took its first groundbreaking steps toward confronting the past through an independent Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Inspired by South Africa's efforts to tackle injustice and seek reconciliation on a larger scale, Greensboro explicitly and controversially connected its experience to other contexts of injustice and launched a novel undertaking for a U.S. community. Learning from Greensboro provides an insider's look at the truth and reconciliation process, including how it worked, the challenges it faced, and the local context in which it existed. The book offers valuable practical insights into the process of truth-telling and gives testimony to the possibility that denial, indifference, and hidden histories can be made to yield to a deeper and lasting justice.