This Day In History

November 3: Greensboro Massacre

The Greensboro massacre took place on November 3, 1979 in Greensboro, North Carolina, United States. Five marchers were shot and killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party while in a protest. It was the culmination of attempts by the Communist Workers Party to organize mostly black industrial workers in the area.

The marchers killed were: Sandi Smith, a nurse and civil rights activist; Dr. James Waller, president of a local textile workers union who had given up his medical practice to organize workers; Bill Sampson, a graduate of the Harvard University School of Divinity; Cesar Cause, an immigrant from Cuba who graduated magna cum laude from Duke University; and Dr. Michael Nathan, chief of pediatrics at Lincoln Community Health Center in Durham, NC, a clinic that helped children from low-income families.  

Hostility between the groups flared in July 1979 when protesters disrupted a screening of a pro-white supremacist film, 'Birth Of A Nation', by Ku Klux Klan members in China Grove, North Carolina. Taunts and inflammatory rhetoric were exchanged during the ensuing months. On November 3, 1979 a rally and march of industrial workers and Communists was planned in Greensboro against the Ku Klux Klan. The Death to the Klan March was to begin in a predominantly black housing project called Morningside Homes. Communist organizers publicly challenged the Klan to present themselves and 'face the wrath of the people'.

During the rally, a caravan of cars containing Klansmen and members of the American Nazi Party drove by the housing projects. A scuffle broke out, whereupon Klansmen and Nazis left their cars and opened fire with shotguns, rifles and pistols. Some marchers were armed and returned fire. Cauce, Waller, and Sampson were killed at the scene. Smith was shot between the eyes when she peeked from her hiding place. Eleven others were wounded. One of them, Dr Nathan, later died from his wounds.

Much of the armed confrontation was filmed by four local news camera crews. One of the most questionable aspects of the shoot-out is the role of the police. Normally, police would have been present at such a rally. However, no police were present, which allowed the assailants to escape. A police detective and a police photographer did follow the Klan and neo-Nazi caravan to the site, but did not attempt to intervene. Edward Dawson, a Klan member who  turned police informant, was in the lead car of the caravan. Two days prior to the march one of the Klan members went to the police station and obtained a map of the march and the rally. Bernard Butkovich, an undercover agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) later testified he was aware that Ku Klux Klansmen and members of the American Nazi Party unit he had infiltrated would confront the demonstrators. In previous testimony, the Nazis claimed the agent encouraged them to carry guns to the anti-Klan demonstration. This has led to accusations of police collusion in the shooting.  Forty Klansmen and Nazis were involved in the shootings; sixteen were arrested but only six were brought to trial. Two criminal trials resulted in acquittal of the defendants by all-white juries. However, in a 1985 civil lawsuit the survivors won a 350,000 dollar judgment against the city, the Klan and the Nazi Party liable for violating the civil rights of the demonstrators.