This is footage of the November 3rd, 1979 anti-Klan rally held in Greensboro, NC named, Death to The Klan.
The organization that promoted and held the rally was named the Communist Workers Party (CWP). The people slowly rolling up in the cars are with KKK and Nazi groups from around NC, looking to confront the “communist protestors.”
Five CWP members were murdered on that day, with either the violence or their explicit deaths captured on film. After watching this attack, keep in mind that the Klan members were all acquitted of murder on a self-defense plea, even though this footage was used as evidence in the state trial.
This injustice is exactly why Greensboro is hosting the first Truth & Reconciliation Commission ever within the United States.
10 responses so far ↓
1 Bruce Burch // May 22, 2006 at 9:12 pm
Stark, powerful footage. Very telling. Thanks for sharing that.
2 David Hoggard // May 22, 2006 at 9:17 pm
Thanks for posting this.
3 Hogg’s Blog » Shooting at Morningside // May 22, 2006 at 9:34 pm
[…] Andy Burton Coon has posted extended film
4 Lyricist Wednesday: 88 Seconds In Greensboro at connecting*the*dots // May 24, 2006 at 2:39 pm
[…] 88 Seconds Is all it takes 88 Seconds Don’t make mistakes We’ve seen you We can see you In red and blue In black and white Under crystal skies In full daylight You know it God you know it 88 seconds Is all it takes In 88 seconds We don’t make mistakes We know you Oh, yes we have known you Times are changing But not in our street Once we played there Like the good times You know it God, you know it They’re heading for a shallow grave With a big black cross by a tall white house to a place down south We won’t forget To be stabbed in the back by a man they met In 88 seconds In Greensboro In 88 seconds In Greensboro 88 seconds In Greensboro is all we take […]
5 J.Zulu // May 26, 2006 at 11:07 am
If this were to happen today (2006) I believe the outcome would be very different- I am a big advocate of peace, I love the works of Jesus, Ghandi and Martin, but I am a believer in the preserving of your own life, “by any means necessary” and I don’t feel that the people on the streets would have been “wrong” for acting out what the signs said, “death to the klan”- today’s youth have a rage that is unstoppable, problem is that they use that rage to kill each other over colors, shoes, clothes, arguments and other BS, meanwhile at least once a month, somewhere in this country, some youth is beat down, shot down or locked away for some petty so called crime and evry month new laws are put into effect that will soon effectively wipe out the African American Community- this film illustratesthat same system in place- anytime anyone ever said anything against the government, there were a load of cops ready to take them down but here, the KKK and Nazis ride through the Grove (mostly black) during a CWP rally and there are no cops in site- I ain’t scared to say that all of those punks should have died that day and then the police station should have burned to the ground. I am in no way racist and I love all people of the world, but we have sat dorment for too long hoping that the problem will smooth itself out, meanwhile brothers are getting shot in the street, emails are being read,internet and library activities are being monitored and conversations are being recorded by nazi cops who work for the same government we are expecting to help us. In no way am i saying that we should start any kind of violence, I’m just saying that we have been beat enough, we have been locked away enough and we have been harrassed enough and at some point we gotta show the strength of the people who have been here since the dawn of man, been persecuted by every system known and unknown since the first time that we tried to befriend another group and we are still here, still strong- so I again say that in 2006 the outcome would be very different- all the people in those cars would have been killed and the video would be used in thier deffese and of course the verdict would also be different- WAKE UP!!!
6 Chris Newberry // Jun 4, 2006 at 2:45 am
THis is truly amazing and sad all at once. It saddens me that this type of hate still exists in our world today and people will truly never learn. I only hope that people who view this will take it for what it was which is a senseless act of hatred and violence! One love,
Chris
7 Hogg’s Blog » Imagine this… // Jun 7, 2006 at 7:17 am
[…] Everything that happens after that is a horrifying blurr that is replayed over and over on my TV later that night and for years to come.
8 JASIRI » I remember hearing the stories, but I’d never seen the footage // Jul 19, 2006 at 6:25 pm
[…] wow! caught on film and still acquitted of murder. […]
9 catalina gomez // Oct 7, 2006 at 9:50 pm
The footage makes it clear that the people who were looking for a confrontation were the Communists (as all of you who have read your Karl Marx know, he promoted violence). That is why they had posters that said “Death to the Klan.” “Death to the Klan” sounds pretty confrontational to me.
It does seem funny that people (Communists) who go on and on about class struggle could not see the socio-economic position of the Klansmen, just from thier cars alone. These were, and are, the dispossed; as much as the blacks; even more so; since they were unfairly and hysterically aligned with all other White people, at least when it was convenient; never mind the fact that NO wealthy, self-respecting white liberal will ever look at himself as on the same level as poor whites in a social setting; and not just in the South; they were used by the Rich in the South during the Civil War (the Confederacy was a meaningless enterprise that left them as poor at the end of that debacle as it did at the beginning) and scapegoated by the rich White “Liberal” and Communist in the North (and of course, still are).
They were no more acculturated into the system than Blacks were; and acculturation was the heart of the problem (as it remains today, for all of us). A problem that should have made it clear that poor Whites and Blacks had more in common than not. But poor Whites were scapegoated and left out to dry;
Yes, it is too bad that the best they could do was to respond as they did (by becoming Klansman); but who are we to sneer and judge when we make all kinds of excuses for everyone else involved in the whole American saga? Except them (which is what being a scapegoat means). No, poor whites and blacks were driven apart to suit the ruling class in the North and the South; ANY communist should know this; The fact concerning poor whites is they had nowhere to go and no one defending them; as blacks have, for years and years. And the education of poor whites did not permit them the access to a more intelligent alternative. Now, as everyone knows, explanations like this are used on behalf of blacks all of the time; why not for poor Whites? But there’s more.
Everyone who knows anything about the communist party knows they began to look toward blacks after poor whites made it clear they were just not interested in Communism.
So, you have that on the side of the Left, and on the Right, the fact that the wealthy South would never admit poor Whites into their “polite” Society. So all of this helped lead to what all of us saw that day, either in person, or on television.
But any commentary similar to the one offered here was surpressed, and everyone knows the reasons why; some having been touched on in my above commentary. Either way it is all such a sad affair that can not be explained away with a bunch of crude moral maxims, insults, racial slurs and yet another violent exchange of hate for hate.
One last point; as anyone can plainly see; The USA is headed for another wave of immigration, and not just from Mexico, one that is going to make all other movements pale in comparison; the upshot is that blacks will suffer terribly; and NOT as a result of racism; but as the result of years of unhealthy enabling on the part of many whites; the results have been disasterous, no matter how good the intentions on the part of those involved; and we should not be so quick to assume those intentions were all that good.
Still, no matter; the influx of immigration from Mexico is already having a negative effect on Blacks (see the front page article from the New York Times just last week) and the same will happen as millions – millions – continue to come over from Africa, Asia (particularly China and India), and the Middle East. There are many, including some Blacks, who think that Black America will be buried in this new wave of immigration, simply buried. There are already indications that this is happening: and the sad fact is; the culture of victimization weakened them psycologically and spiritually at a time when they could have fine-tuned themselves in every way (Intellectually, Morally, Economically, etc) and become fully integrated, as they most surely would have, IF they had been properly acculturated. Regardless, the result is that in the face of this new wave of immigration, with the exception of a handful of celebrities, sport stars, musicians, actors and scholars, the majority of Blacks will be relatively defenseless to the overwhelming competition coming from people who will use the same kind of arguements as Blacks, but, who will also be less hostile to the idea of acculturation and hard work. Not to mention that the new immigrants will have one enormous advantage over Blacks; they will not be plagued by the resentments that have simply crippled Blacks, making it impossible for them to move on. Any white, or non-white person who still, still, insists on being an enabler to blacks ought to be ashamed of themselves. But they, like their Black co-dependents, seem absolutely incapable of feeling any shame, at all. Back then I was a young Latino from a priviledged background who buried that fact in my politics. In short, I was once one of those priviledged liberals. Not anymore. I am still a Latino, still a woman, though not as young as I once was; but I am no longer a Communist or a Liberal (but neither am I a conservative; and this trend of abandoning both the Left and Right is growing; as Politics are dying; and for the same reason Religion did; Politics is after all, a secular Religion).
Still, as mentioned above, all of this could have been avoided had blacks been acculturated. But they weren’t; and why should we be surprised? And why do we even think it was “racist”? How could it have been? The ruling elite of the Right and the Left, from the North and the South, and before that in Europe, had been DOING IT TO THEIR OWN FOR CENTURIES!!!! How has anyone missed this? But more importantly, how has ANY Communist missed it? There are many reasons, but that is for another time.
In any event, the fact that this was missed, the fact that America is, from both sides of the social and political and economic fence, Left/Right, Rich/Poor, Black/White, so anti-intellectual and worse, anti-historical, made things like the 88 seconds in Greensboro, not just possible, but, inevitable.
10 dave // Oct 17, 2006 at 4:49 pm
As a white male, I feel condemned by blacks, even though I am not a racist, or at all violent. I feel that because of past history, most blacks hold a grudge, because of what our ancestors did. How can I be accounted for what happened years before I was even born? I noticed there were a lot of white people standing against the KKK in the video. America is a mixing bowl of different races. Its time to put the past behind us, and all get along.
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