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The Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission

In June 2004 five women and two men were appointed to the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission (GTRC). The GTRC was charged with looking into the shooting deaths of five protestors and wounding of 10 others by the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party on November 3, 1979. A coalition of civic leaders issued the mandate and made a public call for nominations. A panel of community representatives seated in early 2004 and headed by a local District Court judge selected the diverse group of seven commissioners, who served on a part-time basis, aided by a small staff. In 2005, the GTRC collected statements and reviewed other information, held three two-day public hearings in July, August, and September, and organized a public dialogue in November. The Commission concluded its research in 2006 and presented its Final Report to the public in a ceremony on May 25, 2006. Since then, concerned residents have discussed the contents of the report and most recently have turned toward discussion of how to advance the implementation of the recommendations made by the GTRC in its final report.

The ICTJ served as an advisor to the GTRC's initiating project and throughout its mandate provided the Commission with technical advice, relevant comparative information, and contacts with experts and practitioners involved in similar work around the world. While the Commissioners adapted the experiences of other countries to their local context, the information and advice provided by the ICTJ served as valuable reference points and lessons from elsewhere, and assisted them and their staff in making progress on new terrain. The Commission's successful inauguration on June 12, 2004, its steady progress over the course of its nearly two years of work, and its final report are due to the efforts of those working locally in Greensboro. The ICTJ did, however, play a key contributing role in helping to successfully advance the Commission's truth-seeking and reconciliation process.

The Center's work in Greensboro is unique in relation to other program work because of the local scale of the process and the Commission's unofficial status. The ICTJ views the GTRC as an innovative attempt to apply the methodologies used by truth commissions in other countries to deal with past human rights violations in the United States. The Greensboro process will not only provide insights to the ICTJ's work elsewhere, but may also offer a useful model to other communities in the United States seeking to address unresolved histories of injustice. Since the GTRC's final report was issued in 2006, the ICTJ has focused on making that experience accessible to others.

Development of the Mandate

Throughout 2002 and in early 2003, ICTJ Senior Associate and head of the Center's Greensboro program, Lisa Magarrell, and International Policymakers Unit Director Priscilla Hayner consulted with the Greensboro Truth and Community Reconciliation Project (GTCRP) as a panel of national advisors and local stakeholders developed the mandate for the Commission and defined a selection process that would ensure that Commissioners would be chosen by a cross-section of the Greensboro community and would function as an independent and autonomous body. The mandate and selection process were published in May 2003 in the local newspaper, along with a public call for nominations of potential commissioners.

ICTJ Senior Associate Eduardo Gonzalez and Consultant Bongani Finca, a former member of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, participated in a workshop on truth and reconciliation in November 2003 for interested community members.

The Selection Process

The selection panel was seated by early 2004, and was comprised of one representative from each of the following groups or institutions: chairs of university student bodies, university chancellors and presidents, Greensboro Neighborhood Congress, Greensboro Truth and Community Reconciliation Project, Guilford County Democratic Party, Guilford County Republican Party, Jewish Community, Mayor of Greensboro, Muslim Community, NAACP, National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ), traditional Protestant, Catholic, and Independent churches, the Pulpit Forum (African-American Churches), and the Triad Central Labor Council.

Ms. Magarrell prepared relevant comparative information for this group and conducted a workshop for the selection panel members.

The Commission in Operation

In June 2004, Lisa Magarrell, Priscilla Hayner, and Bongani Finca, conducted a workshop on truth commission start-up issues for several of the newly appointed Commissioners, providing them supporting documents from other relevant experiences.

Throughout the Commission's mandate, Ms. Magarrell traveled to Greensboro on numerous occasions to provide comparative information, analysis, and advice to Commissioners and staff on a variety of operational and substantive issues. Additional workshops were held in September and December 2004, and meetings to provide technical support on specific topics followed throughout 2005 and into 2006. Consultants worked with Ms. Magarrell and other ICTJ staff to share with the GTRC their hands-on expertise and experiences from Peru, South Africa, and the United States.

Working sessions and written materials by Ms. Magarrell and ICTJ consultants dealt with planning and organizational issues, statement-taking, public hearings, legal challenges, research planning, and report-writing issues. The Center also provided information and technical advice in relation to witness confidentiality, statement formats, and victim issues. A small library of truth commission final reports from around the world was provided to the GTRC by the ICTJ. Over the course of the GTRC's mandate, the ICTJ facilitated the Commission's access to the expertise of over 20 individuals, from international and US experiences.

Ms. Magarrell observed and provided feedback to the Commission on the three public hearings, and was accompanied at the first by Mr. Finca. She was also able to observe the community dialogue process that took place in early November 2005, and attended the ceremony of the handover of the Commission's final report in May 2006.

The Post-Commission Process

Following the publication of the GTRC's report, the ICTJ co-organized with the Beloved Community Center of Greensboro (BCC) a "Managing Truth Commissions" meeting in Greensboro. This meeting, held over two-and-a-half days in July 2006, brought together Commissioners, staff, and supporters of the GTRC, as well as individuals involved in truth-seeking in South Africa, Peru, Northern Ireland, and Sri Lanka, and activists from around the southern United States, to discuss lessons in truth-seeking and the applicability of this model elsewhere in the United States. A report of that meeting, "Lessons in Truth-seeking: International Experiences Informing United States Initiatives," was published by the ICTJ and BCC in September 2006.

In October 2006 the ICTJ launched a small outreach and education project about the Greensboro TRC, in collaboration with the BCC, and with the assistance of Greensboro-based consultant and former Executive Director of the GTRC, Jill Williams. Through this project, the ICTJ and BCC have raised visibility about the TRC's process and continue to monitor and report on ongoing work in Greensboro. The project included the dissemination of copies of the report and a short video to interested activists around the United States, particularly in the South, speaking engagements at which people involved in the Greensboro process shared their experience with others-including the Alliance for Truth and Racial Reconciliation, participants in the U.S. Social Forum, and groups in Anniston, Georgia, Farmville, Virginia, Brown University, and others.

In 2006, Ms. Magarrell began writing about the Greensboro experience, working with a co-author, Joya Wesley, who had served on the staff of the Commission and as media liaison for the originating project. Their book, Learning from Greensboro: Truth and Reconciliation in the United States, will be published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2008.

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Background

On November 3, 1979 in the Morningside neighborhood of Greensboro, North Carolina, members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and Nazi Party opened fire on a racially mixed gathering of local and out-of-town political activists and labor organizers-several of them affiliated with the Communist Workers Party (CWP)-who planned to march in protest against the KKK and then hold a meeting on economic justice issues. While news cameras filmed the developments, five of the mostly unarmed protesters were killed and 10 wounded by KKK and Nazi bullets. Police forces, who were aware of the armed mobilization of Klansmen and Nazi Party members against the march, were notably absent at the time of the attack, although a police informant was in the lead car of the Klan/Nazi caravan and his police handler followed closely behind.

State and federal criminal murder trials resulted in the acquittals of those charged. A federal civil trial found liable certain individuals (two policemen, four KKK, and two Nazi Party members) for damages for the wrongful death of the only victim not a member of the CWP. The City of Greensboro paid that judgment on behalf of all defendants in settlement of the case but has consistently denied any responsibility.

The full story of what some call the "Greensboro Massacre" had long been silenced or denied in Greensboro, where a skewed view of the event and of the victims quickly became the official version, permeating the town's collective memory on the issue. The organizational and educational initiative of the Greensboro Truth and Community Reconciliation Project (GTCRP), a community based effort, led to the development of a truth commission mandate and selection process. The GTCRP-a body separate from that of the Commission-continues to urge local leaders and others to break the shroud of silence surrounding the events of November 3rd and to address what remains the unspoken subtext of labor, race, and community relations issues in the city today. The GTRC was seated in June 2004 and carried out a series of public hearings, a public dialogue, and smaller thematic conversations in the community. The GTRC's research included taking oral and written statements from some 150 individuals and reviewing extensive documentation on the case and relevant context. In 2005, in a vote that split along racial lines, the Greensboro City Council voted six to three to oppose the Commission process.

The report was finalized on May 25, 2006 and presented in a ceremony attended by public officials and numerous community representatives, before an audience of some 400 people. Sixty-seven local groups, including churches, university departments, the police department, formally pledged to be "report-receivers" who would study, discuss, and promote debate on the report.

The GTRC's Final Report and Annexes may be found on its website and provide a thorough examination of the events and their conclusions and recommendations, which are only briefly summarized here.

The report found that "the heaviest responsibility" was on the Klan and Nazis, who planned to provoke violence. The Commission found that the demonstrators should have consulted more in the neighborhood about the rally they planned there, that they underestimated the danger and used unpopular tactics, but "did not seek or deserve to be killed."

The Commission did not find that police and Klan/Nazis had conspired to commit murder, but the Commission did make a more nuanced finding that "loss of life could have been avoided had police been visibly present" and that the decision to stay away was, in the view of the majority of Commissioners, "the result of some intentionality" on the part of some officers. The report criticized the City's response to the event through heavy-handed security tactics and "clamping down on citizen protest" and found that "a flawed system of jury selection created all-white juries unrepresentative of the community, contributing to the acquittals."

Finally, the Commission found that the events of November 3, 1979 "are woven through with issues of race and class" and its report discusses "underlying issues including racial and economic justice, white supremacy, and the failure of the police and justice system to provide equal protection to all residents."

The Commission recommended that the City, police department and individuals who were responsible acknowledge their role and apologize, as well as take steps toward reconciliation. Further, the Commission recommended the implementation of a living wage for all City and County workers, the establishment of citizen review committees on police accountability and the creation of a community justice center. The report referred to contemporary inquiries about police corruption and urged public release of investigative reports and appropriate legal action. All citizens were encouraged to "take an active role in understanding racism, poverty, oppression and privilege around them and the ways in which their own actions play a role in perpetuating disparities."

The City Council held a "voluntary" meeting in mid-July 2006, attended by all but one Council member, and spent about an hour discussing the report. They agreed informally to further discuss the GTRC's findings and to submit some specific points for consideration by the City's Human Relations Commission. On August 21, 2006 the Washington Post reported that the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Guilford College and Guilford Technical Community College "plan to include - or are discussing inclusion of - the 600-page report in classes on an array of subjects, including communications, civil rights history and argumentative research." In fact, over the 2006-2007 academic year, a number of courses dealt with the report and truth-seeking process, and students from several local universities and colleges organized a joint conference on the GTRC and its report. In Durham, North Carolina, students and faculty at Duke University also examined the Greensboro process.

In December 2006 the GTCRP and the Public Library co-sponsored the first of a series of "town hall meetings" to discuss the contents of the report. In March 2007 the City Council voted (this time by a narrower margin that crossed the color line) against serious study of the report and its conclusions. Over the course of 2007, the GTCRP organized three more town hall meetings and, by the end of the year, shifted its emphasis to developing and promoting the implementation of recommendations by the GTRC. This work was ongoing in early 2008.

Commissioners, staff, and community leaders involved in the process have been called on to speak to interested people in the broader North Carolina context as well as in other forums around the United States, where they have found expressions of support and interest in learning from this process. The Bennett College Holgate Library now holds the archives of the GTRC and makes this information accessible to researchers on site upon request.

Greensboro's truth-seeking project-commended by South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu and sparking interest and attention from others around the world-is a thoughtful and innovative attempt to draw on the experiences of other truth commissions and apply them to a community context in the United States.

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(Updated May 2008)