WHO ARE THE GREENSBORO THREE?
NELSON JOHNSON- "There's a leader in Greensboro, and that leader is non other
than Nelson Johnson, " said Rev. Ben Chavis of the Wilmington Ten at the Feb. 2 Anti-
Klan rally. Nelson is also a leading member of the Communist Workers Party, who was
arrested when his friends and o her anti-Klan demonstrators lay wounded, dead or dying;
and the Klan caravan, with the exception of one van, had fled the scene.
Nelson Johnson's struggle against the Klan that day was another in a life spent
organizing people to fight injustice. He worked at Printworks(Cone Mills) in 1975-76
and helped organize the rank and file of the union there, filing grievances, putting out a
newsletter and training shop stewards. From 1968-76, he and his wife, Joyce, helped
found the Greensboro Association of Poor People (GAPP) which fought countless battles
for welfare rights, decent housing and against discrimination. He and others with the
Communist Workers Party, (then Workers Viewpoint Organization), organized a large
contingent of N.C. A&T students to march in Raleigh in April 1978 to uFlee the Wilmington Ten. "
As a student at A&T, Nelson organized other students to help cafeteria workers
shut down the campus cafeteria and win union recognition as v/=ll as a wage hike in 1969.
A year earlier he organized student and community support f&x a rent strike against the
inhuman housing from the local slumlords. A&T students took community people who had
been evicted by AAA Realty into their dormitories until they could find shelter -firing the
strike. That year he also helped the handicapped vote in a union and a 10% wage increase at the Industries for the Blind.
A decade later, Nelson fought along with a police brutality committee to have 2 deputies thrown off the force and convicted for brutally beating a black youth, Gernie
Cummings. And each May since 1976, Nelson and the CWP have brought busloads of ■■■■-.■:.:■;..■.
people to the annual African Liberation Day march against racist regimes in Southern
Africa.
It was no surprise then that Nelson was a leading organizer of the anti-Klan rally
on the day the assassinations occurred. Immediately after his friends' deaths, and with
his arm cut and bleeding from the attack, Nelson Johnson was arrested for "inciting to
riot" when he tried to tell the gathered Morningside community (where the attack ...1 -. * .-.
occurred) who had engineered the massacre and why. The state will try to prosecute
Nelson on this charge on May 5th. The weekend preceding, protest demonstrations
are planned in Washington DC and Greensboro, NC.
RAND MANZELLA- The picture of a stunned Rand Manzella standing protectively over
the body of one of his dead friends, and holding a small revolver that one of the "5" was
using to defend the anti-Klan demonstrators against the automatic weapons of the KKK/
Nazis, was splashed in almost every national publication about Nov. 3rd. He was arrested for being "armed to the terror of the people. " What led Rand Manzella to that
anti-Klan demonstration?
For the last 4 years, Rand was a textile worker, first at Guilford Mills, then at
Cone Mills White Oak Plant where he and Bill Sampson, one of the "5" organized workers to fight for a strong, militant union to stand up against dehumanizing conditions,
such as 10 hour days, forced overtime, speedups, low wages and poor benefits. He
and Bill were on the same union slate that would have won if the national union leadership had not cancelled the election and put the entire local under receivership.
Cone Mills tried to cripple the union drive using tactics that would divide the unity
of black and white workers. They offered Rand a supervisory position a few weeks after
he arrived at the largely black Cone plant. After the massacre, he was fired for being
a "dangerous and violent employee." But isn't it the Klan that historically has terrorized black communities wherever it has reared its hooded head? Rand saw that dividing
Blacks and Whites, whether in the workplace or in their communities, is not the solution
and that organizing and uniting workers is! That is why he was out there demonstrating
against the Klan on November 3rd.
WILLENA CANNON- Willena Cannon is the daughter of a black sharecropper, who is
a longtime community activist and organizer in Greensboro. A participant in the
demonstration that led to her arrest, she is charged with "interference with an officer"
because she was trying to protect a bloodied Nelson Johnson from being hauled away
after the massacre. On May 5th, the state, pursuing a policy of "blame the victims"
will attempt to convict Willena.
*****
DEMAND ALL CHARGES BE DROPPED AGAINST THE 3! ! !
PROSECUTE THE KLAN/NAZI/GOVERNMENT CONSPIRATORS & MURDERERS!
