High noon shoot-out in Greensboro

              Greensboro Daily News, Sun., Nov. 11,1979
High noon shoot-out in Greensboro
The Norfolk Virginian-Pilot
The senseless and brutal killings of five demonstrators at an anti-Klan rally in Greensboro, a city
with a history of temperate race relations, is the worst
act of racial violence in this region in a decade.
The belated arrival of the Greensboro police offers a striking contrast to the tactics of the Virginia
Beach and Norfolk police last month during a rally
conducted by the Klan's Imperial Wizard Bill Wilkinson at the Beach. Tidewater's men in blue were much
in evidence: The rally site was cordoned off, officers
equipped with riot gear lined the sidewalks, the sale
of alcoholic beverages was banned in the area, and no
serious violence occurred.
But the Greensboro police stayed in the background at the request of the planner of the anti-Klan
rally, Nelson Johnson, a black activist since the Sixties.
If his Workers Viewpoint Organization sought to
provoke a confrontation to promote its lesser-known
identity, it couldn't have chosen a more inflammatory
guarantee of violence, daring the "cowards" to show.
Appropriately, Mr. Johnson has been charged with inciting a riot. But no verbal taunt will ever justify the
brutal nature of the Klan's response last Saturday.
Klans and anti-Klansmen have equal rights to
shout their slogans — but not to provoke carnage. The
police, sensing the risk of violence, must be present to
protect those with unpopular views and to prevent a
breach of the peace. Greensboro's police who were
conned into staying away, not without encouragement
from WVO members who yelled "scum" when they
came near, might have deterred Saturday's bloodletting by their presence.
No, it is not America's destiny to become a police
state. But so long as there are extremists resorting to
violence for their own ends, the community must insist on appropriate police action. Allowing one group
or another to stage a confrontation in this armed society invites mayhem, if not mob rule.
The guiding principle must be to let them shout it
out, not shoot it out.
Folly of extremism
The Raleigh News and Observer
North Carolina cannot simply dismiss the violence
between extremist groups in Greensboro as an aberration against which the state is helpless. The armed
conflict involving persons who call themselves Ku
Klux Klan, Nazi and communists serves as a bloody
reminder of the poisons that cannot be disregarded in
the American system.
In a certain sense, of course, Greensboro and
North Carolina are the unmerited victims of circumstances.
To say, however, that it could have happened anywhere is also to say that it could happen again, anywhere. Accordingly, the question becomes: what
should the state and its cities and towns do?
First, a reassessment of law enforcement response clearly is in order.
The choice is not between having police with
weapons drawn every five feet and doing nothing at
all. A police cruiser or two and some uniformed officers at a distance but within view could have caused
potential troublemakers to think twice. Quick, clear
communications within the police force and between
the police force and demonstrators is essential. The
bottom line is that police laxity can sometimes be as
harmful as police repression.
It is not good enough, then, to protest that North
Carolina is innocent, that the participants in the
Greensboro melee are not in the mainstream. North
Carolina must make plain that its cities and their
streets are not there for the taking by the violent-
prone to play out their games of hatred and revenge.
Skewed ideology
The Richmond Times-Dispatch
During the 1960s, before Congress scuttled its internal security panel, communist agitators, Ku Kluxers, neo-Nazis and other potentially violent political
extremists regularly were the targets of investigations
for "un-American activities." While many social conditions have changed in this country since those years,
"un-American" remains a fitting description for political extremists of the sort who touched off a murderous riot Saturday in Greensboro, N. C.
Both factions in the weekend gun battle represented fanatical, distorted views of humanity. Public
support for both groups is negligible.
Greensboro's police, attempting to keep a "low
profile," were a couple of blocks away from the site of
the shootings when the killings took place. Whether
the Greensboro police should be faulted for lack of
preparation for the violence may be determined by investigations to take place in North Carolina. Certainly,
though, neither the Greensboro police nor that city's
generally prosperous and harmonious social climate
can be blamed for harboring the instigators of the violence. The leading communists and Klansmen had
come from other parts of the state.
The killings in Greensboro were the work of fanatics of the mold of Jim Jones, far abstracted from
any human feeling. The skewed ideologies that both
combatant groups represented should be rejected by
any American who cherishes his fellow citizens' peace
and liberty. ^^^^^^^—