Remembering Greensboro
Duke students, faculty keep alive the conversation about the Greensboro shootings
Greensboro became famous in the American civil rights movement for the defiance the community showed in the face of racist laws and social practices. It was at a Greensboro Woolworth's that four firstyear North Carolina A&T students sat down at the whites-only lunch counter insisting on the right to be served lunch at the general store that received their business for school supply purchases. The event touched off a nationwide campaign of college student lunch counter sit-ins. At the time, Greensboro became a watchword for the determination of the younger generations to change society.
The city continues to attract the limelight in the arena of civil rights and racial reconciliation. Over the last two years, Greensboro has hosted the first American experiment with a truth and reconciliation commission process. From Argentina to Zimbabwe, with varying levels of legitimacy and success, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) as an institutional framework has helped communities make peace with their histories of violence and corruption. The Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission (GTRC) actively learns from and credits the experience and ideas of other countries and provides a model for citizen-based movements across the United States.
What sparked the GTRC?
Making Greensboro Matter
The Duke working group on Greensboro has a blog detailing the group's past efforts and future events. To read the blog, click here.
Anyone interested in joining the commission's work can contact any of the group's co-covenors:
Catherine Admay, Visiting Professor of Public Policy and Steering Committee Member for the Duke Human Rights Initiative and the Concilium on Southern Africa
Dawn Peebles, Graduate Student in Cultural Anthropology and participant in the Duke Human Rights Initiative
Scott Sorrell, Undergraduate Student in Cultural Anthropology and Art History
Anita Wright, Undergraduate Program Coordinator for Public Policy, graduate of NC -- A&T/Greensboro and Duke University
Almost 27 years ago, members of the Klu Klux Klan killed five people assembled at a march to protest the Klan. Few people ever heard of this "Greensboro Massacre" or saw the tape capturing the shootings because that same day the Teheran hostage crisis captured the nation's attention. What happened that day was never satisfactorily established or reconciled despite three legal trials and the efforts of several bereaved friends and widows to get at the truth.
Fast forward 20 years: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa is holding hearings and producing a report. Citizen groups in Greensboro follow suit. Through a community-based process and with the help of the International Center for Transitional Justice that helped bring consultants associated with South Africa's TRC to encouraged the process, a commission and staff was formed in 2004. Their mandate was to foster a process that would explore the truth surrounding the "Greensboro Massacre" and the proceedings that followed. At large public hearings a full spectrum of interested parties gathered: fellow marchers; Klan members; the cops, lawyers, and one of the judges; the widows; the cameramen and journalists; and even kids from the neighborhood. The commission also organized several listening events and arts-based efforts (film screenings, music galas, poetry readings). Meanwhile, the staff investigated, took statements, and helped the Commission write a report.
In May 2006, the Commission held a release ceremony in the Chapel of Bennett College (the alma mater of one of the marchers killed) to share its findings and ask the community to be a formal receiver of the report. Many speakers that night observed that it would be up to the community to make something of the report.
Duke joins the conversation
Is Duke part of that community? Three of the people killed in Greensboro were connected with Duke. Two were Duke Medical School graduates and one was a Duke computer operator. Because the issues that sparked the march were thought to be relevant to the entire state, a number of people at the march had driven there from Durham. Duke Professor and former South African bishop Peter Storey helped get the GTRC off the ground. Several Duke professors with specialties in the history of civil rights testified or gave statements while others served as consultants. More that 50 graduate and undergraduate students joined a team that helped the GTRC staff finish their investigation.
If Duke University wanted to make something of the report, what would that mean? What would it look like for Duke to assume the responsibility of an official report receiver? In answer to these questions, a working group formed to read selections from the GTRC's report, engage with the material in meetings and on a blog, seek to act on the report's conclusions in some concrete ways. It is our ambition to make this a collaborative group that includes students, faculty, and staff.