Seems like a good morning to tell the story of the Greensboro massacre, which was echoed last night in Kenosha. Let's go back to November 3rd, 1979, and see what the KKK and American Nazi Party were up to. (Content warning: massacre is not a metaphor.) 1/x

Disclaimer: I am not a historian. Most of what I know about this comes from Kathleen Belew's book Bring the War Home, which you should read. It's about angry Vietnam veterans, anti-communist rhetoric, and white supremacist movements in the US. 2/x

The backdrop is this: the Communist Workers' Party had been marching to support civil rights and workers rights in North Carolina. Meanwhile, and for the previous few years, KKK membership was rising. David Duke was just coming to national attention. 3/x

The CWP was not a non-violent group. (And, like today, this caused arguments about tactics.) They'd been busting up KKK showings of The Birth of a Nation for months. The scheduled November 3rd march was named "Death to the Klan March." 4/x

The KKK and the American Nazi Party had been cooperating for a few months at least. The police had infiltrated both organizations, and a police informant was in fact riding with the KKK as they headed for the march. 5/x

The informant had gotten a copy of the planned route from the local police, in fact. He later testified that he knew the KKK and ANP members were going to confront the demonstrators, but he didn't pass that back to the police. 6/x

Oddly enough, there was no police presence at the march. A somewhat crippled investigation after the fact found that this was "due to a series of command decisions and miscommunications." 7/x

The KKK and ANP showed up in their cars, with guns in the trunks. Echoes continue: surviving demonstrators reported that one of the cars accelerated at the protests. Protestors hit cars with sticks. A KKK member fired first, into the air. The KKK piled out of their cars. 8/x

Some CWP members had handguns, but it was the KKK who passed out rifles and shotguns, and it was the KKK and the Nazis who killed five people. Many others were wounded. Let's pause, and pay respect to the dead. 9/x

Cesar Cauce, a Cuban immigrant who attended Duke University.

Dr. James Waller, a Duke professor who left his medical practice to organize textile workers. 11/x

William Sampson, divinity school graduate and organizer. 12/x

Sandra Neely Smith, president of the student body at the local Bennett College. 13/x

And Dr. Michael Nathen, chief of pediatrics at Lincoln Community Health Center in Durham. 14/x

Thanks now to https://greensboromassacrelessonstoday.org , which I hadn't read before starting this thread and from which I sourced several of these pictures. 15/x

14 Klansmen and Nazis were arrested. The jury was all white. A year later, in November 1980, all the defendants were acquitted: self-defense. 16/x