"Greensboro Massacre
Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party members, on November 3, 1979,
shot and killed five CommunistWorker Party members one-tenth mile north."
.
.
"I wish they would point out on the marker that neither group was from Greensboro."
"They should point out that one group was from Gastonia/China Grove and the other represented the Communist Workers Party."
"My only issue with it is the word massacre. A bit over the top IMHO"
"It is often referred to colloquially as the Klan-Nazi shoot out."
"The News & Record in 1999 (on the 20th anniversary) changed its style in referring to the tragedy from "shootout" to "shootings" because this was considered more accurate."
"Robert Peters, Member of the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission states:
"I disagree with the use of the term “Massacre.”
"shootings"
"the CWP (Communist Workers Party) had actually moved into neighborhoods that a lot of folks who were from Greensboro at the time ignored and avoided. They provided nursing, tutoring, child care and other services that some of the poorest neighborhoods in Greensboro had no access to."
"How many people would have to die in order to use the word, "massacre"?"
"Melee"
"massacre to me implies that the victims had no chance...in the ditch..shot in the head...no chance"
"Melee would encourage a bunch more to read the whole piece to make sure they knew what [melee] meant.
melee
[mey-ley, mey-ley, mel-ey]
noun
1. a confused hand-to-hand fight or struggle among several people.
2. confusion; turmoil; jumble:
...At some point a fight erupted between several party-goers and knives were used in the melee.
...a noisy riotous fight or brawl"
"The November 3, 1979, Greensboro KKK, Nazi and Communist gun shot melee"
"The two criminal trials against the Klansmen and the Nazi Party members led to all defendants being acquitted by all-white juries.
A 1985 civil rights suit ...resulted in one of the few decisions in a Southern court to date against law enforcement officials accused of collusion with Klan violence.
The 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, Marty Nathan, received her payment."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensboro_massacre
"Bernard Butkovich, an undercover agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), later testified that he was aware that Klansmen and members of the American Nazi Party unit he had infiltrated would confront the demonstrators. In an earlier testimony, the neo-Nazis claimed Butkovich encouraged them to carry firearms to the demonstration."
"To be historically accurate it should read "Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party members engaged in a shootout with the Communist Workers Party, on November 3, 1979 resulting in the death of five of the Communist Worker Party members one-tenth mile north"
It was a shootout (not a shooting) as both sides fired shots."
"from a News & Record (then Daily News) reporter who was an eyewitness. Key part: "After the first Klansmen emerged and fired into the air, three or four white members of the Communist Workers Party drew small pistols and fired into the air".
"in broad daylight.....in front of a television crew..... with no police in the area....."
