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Gets Backing
Of 3 Groups
The Greensboro Justice Fund, which is
pressing for further charges in the Nov. 3, 1979,
slayings of five Communist Workers Party members, gained support from the Greensboro
NAACP and two church organizations Wednesday
In an afternoon press conference at Trevi
Fountain, the Justice Fund said the church organizations are the General Baptist Convention
of North Carolina Inc., the state's largest black
Baptist organization, and the United Presbyterian Church, the denomination's northern organization.
. They and the local unit of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
will monitor the federal grand jury meeting in
Winston-Salem to investigate the 1979 shootings,
Justice Fund officials said.
But representatives of the three groups said
they have made no plans beyond following the
federal grand jury investigation through contacts
with the Justice Fund.
The grand jury, impaneled March 22, is investigating possible federal civil rights violations
in the killings, which occurred during a confrontation with Ku Klux Klan and Nazi Party members at a "Death to the Klan" CWP rally in
Greensboro. Six Klan and Nazi members were
later tried and acquitted on murder charges in
state court.
The Greensboro Justice Fund seeks investigation and convictions in this incident and legislative changes to prevent similar occurrences.
The representatives at the press conference
said their organizations' support was not tied to a
political ideology but instead came from a general
concern for justice.
"I do not come here to take the side of any
left-handed group," said the Rev. J. Ray Butler
of the General Baptist Convention. "But Martin
Luther King said injustice anywhere is a threat
to justice everywhere."
John Erwin, vice president of the Greensboro NAACP, said: "The NAACP is concerned
about human rights and what will come out of the
grand jury investigations. It could have been me,
and it could have been you."
Mary Jane Patterson of the United Presbyterian Church said she came to Greensboro because her church deplores injustice anywhere in
the world.
"It's not just in Greensboro," she said. "But
we saw five people slain here on television, for
God and everyone to see, and nothing has been
done about it. That's not the American way of
life."
Patterson's church organization joined the
National Council of Churches in endorsing a $48
million suit filed by the Greensboro Justice Fund
in 1980, days after the not-guilty verdict. The
suit charges that more than 80 law enforcement,
government, Klan, Nazi and undercover person-
. nel conspired to murder members of the CWP
and then covered up their actions.
Butler said the suit will come up for endorsement by his organization at an October meeting
in Durham.
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