■ ■■tt't-'.rt Wsoo'-iii
527 Highland Avenue
Greensboro, N.C. 27U03
A THEATER OF DEMONSTRATIONS
GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA
(Understanding Drama)
In a tragic two minutes on Saturday morning, November 3, 1Q7°, a
gang of Ku Klux Klansmen shot and killed five communists and wounded
twelve others in Greensboro, North Carolina. Three local TV camera
crews filmed the shootout, a two minutes gory as any single segment of
Apocalypse. Now. I groaned while I watched the first newscast because
I knew the outer world would misunderstand. Having been brought up and
educated in the northeast and then having lived the next half of my life
in the south, I find it often hopeless to convey the modern south to
northerners and equally hopeless to convey the north to southerners.
If no magnolia trees grew in Greensboro, northern visitors, I think,
might swear they had seen them here.
But the story of the killings has more important ramifications than
the way northerners see aafr violence in the south in stereotypes. From
the day of the slaughter until the following Sunday when the communists
J
were buried. Greensboro was saturated with the nation and international
media. One local paper estimated that about itOO newsmen and camera
crews came to Greensboro to cover an event of international importance.
It was not. Nor was it ever a racial event in spite of what Time.
Newsweek, and Pravda said.
i b'
Greensboro today is a sprawling city of about 3?£>,000, in essential-
ways characteristic of the modern south. It has two universities and
three collegps, and is the blue jean; capital of the world. In the
■ ■■tt't-'.rt Wsoo'-iii
527 Highland Avenue
Greensboro, N.C. 27U03
A THEATER OF DEMONSTRATIONS
GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA
(Understanding Drama)
In a tragic two minutes on Saturday morning, November 3, 1Q7°, a
gang of Ku Klux Klansmen shot and killed five communists and wounded
twelve others in Greensboro, North Carolina. Three local TV camera
crews filmed the shootout, a two minutes gory as any single segment of
Apocalypse. Now. I groaned while I watched the first newscast because
I knew the outer world would misunderstand. Having been brought up and
educated in the northeast and then having lived the next half of my life
in the south, I find it often hopeless to convey the modern south to
northerners and equally hopeless to convey the north to southerners.
If no magnolia trees grew in Greensboro, northern visitors, I think,
might swear they had seen them here.
But the story of the killings has more important ramifications than
the way northerners see aafr violence in the south in stereotypes. From
the day of the slaughter until the following Sunday when the communists
J
were buried. Greensboro was saturated with the nation and international
media. One local paper estimated that about itOO newsmen and camera
crews came to Greensboro to cover an event of international importance.
It was not. Nor was it ever a racial event in spite of what Time.
Newsweek, and Pravda said.
i b'
Greensboro today is a sprawling city of about 3?£>,000, in essential-
ways characteristic of the modern south. It has two universities and
three collegps, and is the blue jean; capital of the world. In the
