March for Justice: Documenting the Greensboro Massacre

UNC Greensboro University Libraries receive state grant to preserve African American history 

 March for Justice

UNC Greensboro (UNCG) University Libraries and the Thomas F. Holgate Library at Bennett College have received $92,535 in grant funding from the State Library of North Carolina for “March for Justice: Documenting the Greensboro Massacre”. The project will provide digital access to approximately 50,000 pages of material related to the 1979 Greensboro Massacre, an event in which five protestors were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis.  

"This project grant from the State Library of North Carolina will enable UNCG and Bennett College to collaborate on digitization of thousands of records relating to the 1979 Greensboro Massacre and the subsequent work of the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” says David Gwynn, digitation coordinator and associate professor for University Libraries.  

The collections span roughly 48 years, from 1973 to 2021 and document events, actions, and persons connected with the Greensboro Massacre and the short and long-term consequences. 

“The project will make much of this material available to the public for the first time,” says Gwynn. “It includes documents and artifacts from the commission and the detailed personal papers of activist and author Signe Waller Foxworth, whose husband, James Waller, was killed on November 3, 1979." 

These grants are made possible by funding from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act and are administered by the State Library of North Carolina, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources (IMLS grant number LS-253645-OLS-23). 

The material will be added to the Gateway digital history portal over the next year.

What's online so far?

Project partners

UNCG logo

GHM logo  

State Library of NC  

IMLS