An anti-Klan march took place in a housing project in Greensboro on Nov. 4, 1979. A group of about 40 KKK and Nazi members in 10 vehicles, descended on the march. They got out of their cars, opened their trunks, took out long guns and shot into the crowd. Five people were killed.

Salisbury Post Editor Chandler Inions recently wrote a moving opinion piece “Keep walking even when it’s hard” (Jan. 18) after the Buddhists monks visited our area and stayed at the China Grove Community Building. He compared their peaceful walk to the near-violent confrontation at the same Community Building 47 years earlier in July of 1979 when Ku Klux Klan members gathered to see a racist film, “Birth of a Nation.” Some KKK members “stood guard” with long guns on the porch, confronting a group of anti-Klan protesters from the local area as well as Charlotte, Greensboro and the Triangle area. Local police prevented a violent confrontation, forcing the Klan off the porch and back into the building.

The Klan vowed revenge. An anti-Klan march took place in a housing project in Greensboro on Nov. 4, 1979. A group of about 40 KKK and Nazi members in 10 vehicles, descended on the march. They got out of their cars, opened their trunks, took out long guns and shot into the crowd.

Five people were killed: Sandra Smith, an African American woman from South Carolina, student body president at Bennett College, planning to be a public health nurse; Cesar Cauce, son of Cuban immigrants who graduated magna cum laude from Duke; Dr. Michael Nathan, chief of pediatrics at Lincoln Community Health Center in Durham; Dr. James Waller, pediatrician and president of a local textile union; and Bill Sampson, Harvard Divinity School graduate, medical student and union organizer. Twelve others were injured in the melee.

The state prosecuted five Klan members. All were acquitted by an all-white jury. In a federal trial, nine defendants were acquitted, again by an all-white jury. A government agent who infiltrated the Klan warned authorities of possible violence, but nothing was done. Another agent who infiltrated the Nazi party failed to notify authorities of possible danger.

To read more about the Greensboro Massacre of 1979, visit Greensboro massacre – Wikipedia. Now you know the rest of the story.

— Eileen Hanson-Kelly