connecting*the*dots

What’s History Worth?
The Lex Files

“Every time I publish a story related to the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation report and its aftermath, I hear from people either curious or angry about why the N&R, almost a year after the release of the report, continues to cover it.

[…]

But here’s the problem with ignoring the wrongs and the hurt that litter our past — and I am indebted to the old comic books I read as a kid for the imagery: You can cover up the past all you want, but often it won’t do any good. If you clean and bind the wounds of past harm, and acknowledge the loss and grief of those to whom it happened or their survivors, then you can bury it and perhaps it will rest easy.

But if you don’t, then don’t be surprised if, as you walk through the garden, smelling the magnolias and enjoying the evening air, a rotting hand reaches up from the ground and grabs you and won’t let go. Sometimes the dead don’t stay buried.”

I hear you and couldn’t agree more, Lex. And after living here for going on two years now, I think I’m getting the pulse of this city, but it’s a strange one to put a finger on.

For all of the accountability folks wants from city government and the GPD over issues like a fired police chief and potential misappropriations of $30,000 of taxpayers funds, one might think that the disgust over the Greensboro Police Department’s gross irresponsibility to protect and serve in ‘79 would draw a furor until they satisfactorily explained their inaction on that day.

Actually, that’s not true; the GPD was in action on 11/3:

• A police informant was riding with the Klan in the lead car
• The GPD filmed the Klan loading up their cars with numerous weapons prior to hitting the march route
• A call was sent out to clear the march route of all officers

So yes, the GPD was busy on that day, just not protecting the permit approved march route.

But can you blame them?

Nelson Johnson vociferously barked at the cops to stay away the day before, so they just followed his wishes. I mean, cops are notorious for throwing their responsibilities to the wind when a civilian yells loud enough, right?

From yesterday’s Yes! Weekly article, New inside perspectives on 1979 shootings point to police complicity:

[…] “Based on conversations with Dawson, who is no longer alive, Hennis told YES! Weekly in a recent interview that he believes members of the Greensboro Police Department decided to allow the Klan and Nazis to attack demonstrators after march organizer Nelson Johnson warned police to “stay out of our way.”

“The police, I believe, knew right much about it,” Hennis said. “After Nelson smart-mouthed them, they decided to just stay back and referee…. They didn’t have no plan, but they knew about it and couldn’t care less.” […]

Hell, the people that died in ‘79 were communists. It’s not like they were actually people who subscribed to a different take on labor issues and the systemic issues of socio-economic inequalities within America (which have actually grown since 1979). They were followers of a foreign “ism”… and words have consequences, right?

The thought makes me sick.

I’m not so naive to believe that privileged folk down here care to settle that case of obvious police wrongdoing.

Now, if there’s money involved or the potential for “reverse” racism to be framed, well, that’s a whole other case entirely.

Greensboro 101

Here’s the deal as I see it: Greensboro is a civil, southern town — civility will not allow for such retrospective inquiries of negative events that have occurred in the public sphere.

It’s not how things are done down here; dirty laundry is not to be aired — it’s meant to be buried.

Historically, that’s how things have worked.

It’s always been much easier to bury improprieties and crimes, along with the heads in this town, rather than talk about the issues, bring truth to the table, hold folks accountable to their actions and reconcile our grievances.

More so here than anywhere else I’ve lived.

The problem for past and present town planners and gatekeepers, is that we’re now living in the information age — their circle the wagon rhetorical tactics of old cannot quell the voices of residents who want answers, whether it be about 11/3/79 or the Dudley High School revolt or Willow Oaks or re-zoning a city district to force a successful rehabilitation and homeless program to close their doors.

And more and more folks are wanting answers in this day and age.

Burying an infested bone in a wire-frame view of a backyard these days can’t even fool a dog named Helenkeller.

So much for trying.

Look, I’m not trying to force an opinion on anyone. It’s a well-known fact that in the very least, the Greensboro Police Department did not protect and serve its community on 11/3/79 — specifically, Morningside Homes and numerous other Greensboro residents who collected that morning to protest with the CWP (an organization armed with a location specific, city-sanctioned march permit).

Over the last month or so, conversations around town surrounding the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report — with a subsequent recommendation for the city to apologize for its role in the escalation of violence — has numerous residents and/or neighbors of Greensboro heroically trying to sweep that historical fact under the rug.

Completely blind to the negative, residual effects of 11/3/79 on other people within their own community — voices who have been silenced over the years and up through this loud and conflicting debate of privileged people on computers — people valiantly press on:

• meblogin: “How about nobody apologizes and Greensboro continues to be a great place where a horrid event took place?”…
• Dr. Mary Johnson: …”Hey Bubba, let’s you and me take off the albatross, go pay that cover and get some nice Southern iced tea. Not San Francisco, not Boston, not Seattle, not New York City tea. But good old-fashioned Greensboro, North Carolina iced tea. And let’s talk about something else.”
• Jeffrey Sykes: …”I’d dare say you and Andy and Sean and the TRC process have done more to hurt the national image of your city by ripping open a healed wound just to see what would happen.”…

The details behind the 11/3/79 incident were already well documented in literature, long before the initiation of the TRC process or the release of the report and recommendations.

From the May 2001 anthology entitled, Police Brutality:

[…]

Perhaps the worst incident occurred on November 3, 1979, in Greensboro, North Carolina, where five members of the Communist Workers Party were murdered by Klansmen and Nazis during an anti-Klan demonstration.

Not only did the Greensboro police know of the Klan’s plan to attack the demonstration but, just minutes before the confrontation, nearly all on-duty officers were called to the other side of town for a “lunch” break. When the shooting stopped, there was not a cop in sight.

Although the entire episode was caught on videotape, the all-White jury concluded that there was insufficient evidence to convict anyone.

[…]

Sorry folks, but the facts are out there for the world to see and they have been for years. You’d be dumbstruck by the sheer amount of evidence of police wrong-doing you could find in the Chapel Hill library.

Non-privileged folk in our community, such as former residents of Morningside — people who were most affected by the uncontested crossfire of hate on 11/3/79 and similar attitudes of institutional indifference that exists today — have already ingrained the details surrounding the event into their psyche long ago.

And I’d bet that image ain’t too pretty, either.

Examples of outside-the-community crafted literature and mounds of evidence available to the public is simply icing on the cake.

To me, it’s clear that city leadership, as a majority, doesn’t care at all about these ingrained attitudes, so my blunt question for you — my fellow residents and neighbors of Greensboro (online) — is do you give two shits?

Because, while over time this conversational meme may putter out online and people will go back to focusing on their own lives, getting ready for back to school specials and the eventual holiday shopping season, this moment is our opportunity to approach these issues, out in the open, in an honest discussion to bridge even broader issues that currently affect all residents of Greensboro proper.

For if we continue with these attitudes, and life returns to “normal” for the majority of us, the streets of Greensboro — especially the ones less traveled by you or me — will continue to whisper, edify and drift apart.

Exactly eighty-one years before the mess of 11/3/1979, a coalition of white leaders and white supremacists took to the streets in Wilmington, North Carolina, killing over a hundred black people in the process of performing a coup d’etat.

The Wilmington Race Riot of 1898 was tragic on three distinct levels:

1. A group of white political and business leaders stole an election, where black people had successfully served in positions of local government just 25 years following the end of the Civil War.
2. Not content with the speed of the political change over, the newly “elected” powers overthrew the established leaders by launching a riot, resulting in the murder of more than a hundred black people, while driving numerous more out of town.
3. The progressive nature of black citizenship and inter-racial political cooperation in North Carolina absolutely preceded the national civil rights movent of the 50’s and 60’s; this one event completely reversed the course of civil rights in all of North Carolina and served as a signal to the nation that blacks continued to have zero civil rights.

Fun fact: The next five governors of North Carolina had all participated in the coup and riot of 1898, including former governor Charles B. Aycock. Greensboro residents are distinctly familiar with that name.

The 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission released their report just five days after the Greenboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report went public. Considering that the events of ‘79 pale in comparrison to the massacre - coup d’tat of ‘98, and based on the often chilly, local conversation surrounding the GTRC report, I can only guess how many supposed “progressive” North Carolinians will view the recomendations of the State President of the NAACP, let alone the final recommendations to come later this year.

Not to sound like a PSA, but our collective, understood history too often defines our future actions in defining community. For those of you with limited time to investigate this issue, take a listen to this amazing State of Things broadcast, which dissects the history of the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot, provides context to the political and cultural isses of the day and discusses how the NC State legislature might proceed from the soon-to-be published recommendations.

(hat tip: Andy)

I’m the filmmaker’s brother, so yes, I’m an obvious shill for his work. Andy started researching the documentary in 1997 — seven years before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission even began their process. It’s a project that touched him personally, while driving him professionally.

If a film about social injustice can be called a labor of love, well, this is that film.

This Friday and Saturday night mark the last two nights of in-town screenings of Greensboro’s Child. Dale and Lowell, owners of The Scene on South Elm, have been great hosts; thanks for everything guys.

Whether you plan to read the TRC report at some point in the future or have decided that the events of 27 years ago have nothing to do with you, come on down this weekend, sit back and enjoy 75 minutes of a highly relevant and well-researched documentary. It’s time well spent, I promise you.

And while we’d love to see you in person, we both realize that summer schedules can get crazy. So along those lines, the Greensboro Public Library now has copies of the DVD to borrow. And if you’ve lost your library card over the years, you can always purchase the documentary on the official website for a mere $10.

Hope to see you this weekend.

I hearby declare you… a bunch of dead plants.

————

Ed Cone, News & Record, 10/9/05
Council members speak on Truth and Reconciliation hearings

[…]

Tom Phillips did not consider attending the hearings. “My attending would not matter,” he said. He will read the report. “If we as a council think it is worthwhile, we’ll consider it. If I disagree with the final conclusions, I’ll be called names. They say we’re racists — when are people going to ask black council members why they always vote together?” He said Nelson Johnson’s involvement compromised the project (a danger I pointed to as early as 2003); that he understood that the commission was independent of Johnson; and that he wanted to know where the money Johnson raised for the project had gone.

[…]

To be fair to Tom Phillips, these quotes were from last year, only a handful of months following the city council’s vote to not endorse the investigation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

I mean, who was the idiot that placed upstanding, community politicians in a position to stand up and be counted on such an important issue to the community?

Let me step back for a moment…

Who am I to argue with another person’s sense of duty to community? I mean, the 6 of 9 members that voted against endorsing the TRC must have been serving the perspective of their immediate neighbors, right?

You know, I’m betting that Phillips has taken the time since last October to communicate to his constituency the importance of this moment in Greensboro’s continued attempts to heal open wounds and move forward as one community. If not, well, I’m positive that time has provided him with a stronger, more personal perspective on the issues that face this community-at-large.

So let’s fast-forward from 7.5 months ago to yesterday, the day following the culmination of the 2 year-long TRC investigation. Tom Phillips was once again contacted by local media, this time with an opportunity to address the culmination of the commission’s investigation and their final report.

Frank Mickens, WFMY News 2, 5/26/06
City Council Members Respond To Truth And Reconciliation Commission Report

Greensboro, NC — An independent panel says the the city of Greensboro needs to make up for mistakes it made after the Klan-Nazi shootings.

The commission’s report says city police didn’t do its job to protect the five union protesters who were shot and killed by a group of klansmen and Nazis. And it says city eroded race relations and the public trust by establishing curfews in Morningside Homes and distancing itself from what happened.

The commission wants the city to apologize. But council members don’t agree that’s a good idea. Council member Tom Phillips appeared indifferent to the report. Reached by phone he said quote, ” I could care less what they report has to say. At some point I plant to take a look at it.”

[…]

Time can erode the profiled face of a mountain, but not the position of this man.

What a rock.

UPDATE: According to Tom, the context of Tom’s quote wasn’t provided by the WFMY reporter:

Frank Mickens didn’t quite tell the whole story. I was sitting on my balcony looking at the ocean when Frank called on my cell phone (I’m changing my number). I told him I was on vacation and I couldn’t care less…….. I taken my last call from Mr. Mickens

Brush clearing, vacationing politicians everywhere feel you, Tom.

UPDATE II: Fox News reports Toms reaction when asked about a city/GPD apology for not protecting permit holders on 11/3:

Council member Tom Phillips, who said he has read most of the executive summary, said he doesn’t support an apology.

“We’ve got more important things to do,” he said.

UPDATE III: Ed Cone reports that Tom Phillips won’t come to a city council discussion in July regarding the TRC report. Tom’s words:

Ed, I recommended that council members review the recommendations in the report and if they believed that any on them should be adopted, they should bring them up at a council meeting where they can be discussed and voted up or down. I know how this group discussion will turn out and I don’t have the time or desire for another lecture from Goldie Wells. Tom

The TRC report is the culmination of a two-year process, attempting to address the ongoing issues stemming from 11/3/79 — issues that effect this community, both as a whole and especially specific communities divided along lines of class and race. Find tthe time, Tom, and be a good representative of the entire Greensboro community and join the discussion.

UPDATE IV: Tom’s foot-in-mouth syndrome continues:

“It occurs to me that we may not be going back far enough in this whole process of finding the root causes of what happened that day.�

“The reason the CWP was able to establish itself was because they were trying to improve working conditions and pay at local mills. A lot of people were getting very rich off the labor of the poor and there were those who saw that as a real injustice. If those mills had been treating their employees right, then the CWP wouldn’t have formed. Without the CWP, it is very likely that confrontation would never have happened. So if apologies are due, maybe the first ones should come from the mill owners and their descendents. If reparations are due, surely there are some trust funds around that could be tapped for that purpose.�

That last line is a killer of good faith and credibility.

Tom Phillips would never offer a serious analysis of the times — the stage of Greensboro’s labor situation and the workings of the CWP — as that would validate the CWP beyond a group of extremist rebel-rousers. Instead, he offers the analysis as a lede to dig a local, public figure (Ed Cone, related to the ownership of Cone Mills), alluding to Ed’s suggestion of an alterior route of apology to jumpstart the reconciliation process.

Congrats, Tom, you continue to do the city proud.

Apparently, the paper reported a 9pm showing of the documentary tonight, so Dale and Lowell at The Scene on South Elm are obliging.

Showtimes are for both 7pm and 9pm and tickets are only $3. As he did last night, Andy will be there to field Q&A after each screening.

If you’re busy trying to digest the 400 page Truth and Reconciliation Commision report, come on out and see the documentary. The film didn’t win Best Researched Documentary at the 2002 Chicago Film Festival for nothing.

The first paragraph of the Executive Summary:

The Commission finds that on the morning of Nov. 3, 1979, members of the Klan/Nazi caravan headed for Greensboro with malicious intent. At a minimum, they planned to disrupt the parade and assault the demonstrators (by throwing eggs), violating the marchers constitutional rights to free speech and assembly. Further, we believe there is sufficient evidence to conclude that they intended to provoke a violent confrontation and that this was broadly understood among those present in the multiple planning discussions. Those who left their cars to engage in violence did so willingly. More importantly, Klan and Nazi members have admitted since the event that they intentionally came prepared to use deadly force in order to be victorious in any violence that occurred.

[…]

Much more to come, as the final report is to be released next week in the morning.

I’m posting this from the screening of Greensboro’s Child. The Q&A after the 7pm screening was very intense. Not in a bad way either. Each person in the audience had a unique perspective and questions that furthered the conversation.

Come on down tomorrow night, 7pm, The Scene on South Elm, and check it out for yourself.

Q&A video to come soon…