On this day in 1979, five peaceful demonstrators were killed by the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis when they fired on an anti-Klan rally in Greensboro, NC. The police, who had been warned of the potential for trouble, were suspiciously absent at the time of the attack. I remember it well. We think of Klan-police collusion as a produce of the distant Jim Crow past. This incident was less distant. The perpetrators were apprehended in this case, but in the first two criminal trials they were acquitted by all-white juries. In 1985, a civil rights suit led to a rare decision at that time in a Southern court against law enforcement officials who colluded with the KKK. Survivors won a $350,000 judgment against the city, the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party for violating the civil rights of the demonstrators. Only one plaintiff, however, received payment.
Posted on: Sun, 03 Nov 2013 14:06:25 +0000
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