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July 19, 2005

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Survivors of 1979 Greensboro Massacre Testify Before Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Greensboromassacre

We look back at the 1979 Greensboro Massacre, when forty Ku Klux Klansmen and American Nazis opened fire on an anti-Klan demonstration in Greensboro, North Carolina. Five people were killed. No one was convicted. We speak with Paul Bermanzohn, a survivor of the massacre who testified before a Truth and Reconciliation Commission almost 26 years after the massacre. [includes rush transcript]

AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to one of the survivors of the massacre, but first we want to go back to that fateful day in 1979. This is an excerpt of the documentary, Guns of November 3rd. It begins with footage of a Klan meeting.

VIRGIL GRIFFIN: We can take our country back from the Communist Party, we can take it back from the niggers. It’s time for to us band together. We have to get in the streets and fight in blood up to our knees, by God, it’s time to get ready to fight! Give them what they want! Fight for this country! [ applause ]

PROTESTER: They had it planned!

PROTESTERS: Help us! Help us!

PROTESTER: The Klan and the state got together and planned this. That’s why they were not [inaudible]. Do you hear me? The state protects the Klan, and this makes it clear. They came through, and they opened fire. They opened fire on us! And we fired back to protect ourselves.

PROTESTER: The Klan or whoever it was jumped out and just started shooting in the direction of the thickest concentration of people. They seemed to be aiming at particular people. There were several police in the area who did nothing until after these murderers left. Police came in, immediately started arresting people who were trying to help those who had fallen. Nelson Johnson was taken into custody, kicked in the head by the police. He was bleeding from the arm as he was trying to help people. The police did this, directly or indirectly. They set it up.

PROTESTER: This will never happen again! We will never [inaudible]. He didn’t have a gun on him. Oh, God!

AMY GOODMAN: Images and sounds from the 1979 Greensboro Massacre from the documentary, Guns of November 3rd courtesy of Jim Waters. We’re joined by one of the victims who was shot in the head and the arm, Paul Bermanzohn. You testified this weekend before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Your feelings today, and what you said there?

PAUL BERMANZOHN: Well, excuse me. What I basically talked about was my own participation and the involvement I had that led up to the murders, and talked about the organizing work we had been doing for many years in the — in and around North Carolina. This first hearing was focused on the context that contributed to the Greensboro Massacre, because you cannot just understand it as a particular individual incident, it was really an attack on a whole movement.

AMY GOODMAN: Paul, we’re going to leave it there, but we’re going to go back to this discussion, and we’ll have you back and also be joined by other survivors to talk about what is believed to be one of the first Truth and Reconciliation Commissions set up in this country. And I want to thank you for being with us.

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