Jack Scism was a staff writer for the Greensboro Daily News in 1980. He served as as city editor and senior business correspondent for its successor publication, the Greensboro News and Record until his retirement in 1996.
Subject headings
Greensboro Massacre, Greensboro, N.C., 1979
Topics
Greensboro Massacre, 1979
Place
Greensboro (N.C.)
Description
This November 4, 1979 article by Jack Scism of the Greensboro Daily News is the first coverage by the newspaper of the shooting deaths of five Communist Workers Party (CWP) members at a Death to the Klan rally in Greensboro on November 3, 1979. Scism includes a brief history of confrontation between the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and CWP (as the Workers Viewpoint Organization (WVO) at the time), as well as a chronology of the events of November 3, 1979. Killed at the rally were Sandra Smith, James M. Waller, Cesar Vinson Cauce, William E. Samson, and Michael Nathans (who died on November 5). Fourteen KKK members (Michael Euguene Clinton, Rayford Milano Caudle, Harold Dean Flowers, Billy Joe Franklin, Terry Wayne Hartsoe, Lawrence Gene Morgan, David Wayne Matthews, Lee Joseph McClain, Lisford Carl Napier, Sr., Coleman Blair Pridmore, Jerry Paul Smith, Roy Clinton Toney, and Roland Wayne Wood) were arrested for murder, while Nelson Johnson and one fellow CWP member were charged with inciting to riot. The article includes some community reaction as well as a two photographs and a map of the scene.
