Greensboro: Closer to the Truth

On November 3, 1979, an interracial group of local activists, all members of the Communist Workers Party, were holding an anti-Ku Klux Klan rally in Greensboro, NC. Members of the Klan, backed by neo-Nazi supporters, opened fire on the protesters, killing five people and seriously wounding nine others. Despite the fact that local television cameras captured the shootings, neither the state nor federal trial that followed led to any convictions (a successful civil suit was filed against the Greensboro police and the Klan in 1985). Adam Zucker's documentary revisits the Greensboro Massacre 25 years later, when a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (modeled after the Mandela-era South African process) met for two years to review the politically volatile situation that sparked the massacre and to inquire into individual responsibility. As the commission did their work, Zucker sought out a number of people whose lives were changed by the attack. Some of the post-massacre stories are startling: a young black man, once a Communist agitator, had become a minister; one of the neo-Nazi attackers, slowly dying of emphysema, begs for forgiveness. Yet not everyone involved was ready to forgive or reconcile, particularly one of the Klan leaders who grudgingly agreed to be interviewed by Zucker. Ultimately, though, the film offers an extraordinary study of how intelligent people try to rise above mindless violence. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)