Greensboro massacre

From ProleWiki, the proletarian encyclopedia

The Greensboro massacre was a deadly confrontation in Greensboro, North Carolina on 3 November 1979, perpetrated by members of the American Nazi Party (ANP) and the Ku Klux Klan against members of the Communist Workers' Party (CWP), a Maoist group in the United States which at the time was participating in an anti-Klan demonstration. Five demonstrators were murdered and another eleven people as well as one Klansman were wounded.

Law enforcement, despite fully knowing that the Klan was planning to disrupt the demonstration, were not at the scene when the massacre took place, nor did they make any attempts to prevent the attackers from escaping. When they finally were arrested and charged with murder, they were acquitted twice by all-white juries. In 1980, a separate civil suit alleging civil rights violations and failure to protect demonstrators was filed by surviving protesters, culminating in the conviction of five attackers and two police officers in 1985. Two of the survivors were awarded over $350,000 USD in damages, but never received the money.