The Thread: Revisiting the Greensboro Massacre, 45 years later

Morning, gang.

This week we’re bringing you an interview with Aran Shetterly, author of the new book Morningside: The 1979 Greensboro Massacre and the Struggle for an American City’s Soul.

The Greensboro Massacre was 45 years ago next month. After decades of criminal and civil trials, articles, documentaries, and books we know far more about it now than we did in its immediate, bloody aftermath. But the city remains divided over Nov. 3, 1979.

“This story is vast,” Shetterly told me in our recent interview. “What I realize now is, you could write 100 books about this from different perspectives and each one would have something interesting to say in it.”

Hard to disagree with that. That’s one reason I asked Shetterly about the only other book-length work on the Greensboro Massacre, Elizabeth Wheaton’s Codename Greenkil: The 1979 Greensboro Killings. Wheaton’s book was originally released in 1987 and researched shortly after members of the Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi party killed members of the Communist Workers Party.

Wheaton’s work, which was for many years the only book-length examination of that tragic day, was controversial. Police and city officials felt she laid too much blame at their feet, documenting how they could have prevented the tragedy but didn’t. Survivors from the Communist Workers Party felt she concentrated too much on their militancy and antagonistic rhetoric, bolstering the already common impression they instigated the clash at Morningside Homes, a largely Black housing project.

To my mind, both Wheaton’s and Shetterly’s books are essential.

Shetterly’s new work benefits from many years of distance, reflection, and perspective. It also represents an impressive level of interviewing and research on the many twists in this story since Wheaton’s book was first published, from the Truth and Reconciliation process and the debate over a historical marker to the city’s apology for its role in the tragedy.

Forty-five years on, all of this is anything but ancient history. Next year’s city council elections will see a major shift in who represents the city—and several of those in the race were on the council who approved the historic apology. The two “no” votes were council members Nancy Hoffman and Marikay Abuzuaiter, both of whom said they didn’t believe it was fair to assign blame to the city’s police department. While Hoffman is stepping away from the council after this term, Abuzuaiter has teased a possible run for mayor. If she does, she’ll likely face Justin Outling, the former councilman who was a “yes” vote on the apology.

The issue is also one on which Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a Greensboro native, has teed off at length. In his 2022 autobiography, he accuses Rev. Nelson Johnson, a survivor of the massacre, of trying to recruit children into communism through the Greensboro Association of Poor People. Robinson, now the GOP nominee for governor, also opposed both the apology and historical marker.

This week we’re also bringing you another Robinson story—this one a look at the lawsuit he recently filed against CNN and former Greensboro porn shop worker Louis Money. Robinson did not sue The Assembly, which was the first to report Money’s account of Robinson spending years haunting the city’s porn shops. He also did not sue the four named sources in the story who independently confirmed Money’s story.

Last month’s bombshell CNN story painstakingly linked Robinson’s purported use of the handle “minisoldr” across multiple platforms, including the porn site Nude Africa. That story documented lewd and disturbing posts on the site which included distinctive language Robinson commonly uses and matched biographical details of his life.

Robinson’s suit provides no evidence refuting either The Assembly or CNN’s reporting and misattributes reporting by Politico to CNN, among other oddities. The suit made headlines last week, when Robinson said he was seeking $50 million in damages. This week he amended that to “an amount to be proven at trial, in excess of twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000.00).” That’s the threshold for the suit to be heard in superior rather than district court. In North Carolina, state law forbids plaintiffs from specifying the exact amount of damages they’re seeking in their complaint.

Robinson’s campaign against N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein has been in freefall since those stories, with donor money drying up, staff quitting en masse, and other GOP candidates distancing themselves. Last week polling from the conservative Carolina Journal showed Robinson trailing Stein 49.3% to 35.8%. A Morning Consult poll also released last week had Robinson behind by 22 points.

– Joe Killian

If you like what you see, please consider telling a friend to sign up.

---

Revisiting the Greensboro Massacre 45 Years Later

“It is part of who we are and how we think about things,” says author Aran Shetterly. “We’re a country founded in revolution and in political violence in a lot of ways.”

Read this newsletter online or contact The Thread team with tips and feedback at greensboro@theassemblync.com.

---

Mark Robinson Sues CNN, Former Porn Shop Employee for Defamation

The $50 million lawsuit says allegations about the Republican gubernatorial candidate’s porn habits have “inflicted immeasurable harm.” Experts say Robinson’s case will be tough to prove—and the complaint likely violated state law.

---

Not a subscriber yet? Good journalism is expensive–and we need your support to do more of it. For just $6 a month or $60 a year, you’ll unlock full access to our archives and help us grow in 2024.

Already a subscriber? Consider giving the gift of The Assembly to a friend.

---

What We’re Reading

Cleaning Up: This week the Greensboro City Council will consider two proposals for cleaning up Bingham Park, which is built atop land used as a landfill for decades. The News & Record takes a look at the proposals.

Back in the Saddle: Gov. Roy Cooper has appointed Guilford County Board of Commissioners Chairman Melvin “Skip” Alston to the North Carolina Real Estate Commission. Alston previously served on the commission from 2004 to 2012, including a stint as its chair. The Rhino Times has the story.

---

Around the State

Michael Whatley’s ‘Party of Faith’ Has Problems At The Top

The chairman of the national Republican Party wants it to lean into faith. But that can be awkward given some of the GOP’s big candidates.

Bringing Home the Bacon

In the last four years, lawmakers gave $2.3 billion to hundreds of organizations without a competitive process. Will the next auditor do anything about it?

The Long Road to Rebuilding

We talked to engineering experts about repairing the hundreds of roads, bridges, and culverts Hurricane Helene destroyed.

---

---