Greensboro massacre
| Greensboro Massacre | |
|---|---|
| Location | Greensboro, North Carolina, US |
| Date | November 3, 1979 |
| Target | "Death to the Klan" march |
Attack type | |
| Deaths | Four CWP members and one CWP supporter |
| Injured | 12 |
| Perpetrators | |
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. It was later revealed that undercover law enforcement agents had infiltrated both movements and participated in planning the actions that day. Of the five people killed, four were CWP members, and one was married to a CWP member. The victims were activists involved in racial justice efforts and in unionizing textile industry and hospital workers in the area. 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. In a subsequent civil lawsuit, eight defendants were found liable for the wrongful death of the one non-CWP protester.
Decades later, the Greensboro City Council formally apologized for the deaths. In 2004, a private organization, the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission, was formed with the stated goal of investigating the events of November 1979. Though the Commission was limited in its investigatory authority, 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.