November 3 - The Greensboro Massacre

On this day in Labor History the year was 1979.

That was the day that became known as the Greensboro massacre. 

Members of the Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi party shot and killed five participants in a demonstration held by the Workers Viewpoint Organization, later called the Communist Workers Party. 

Workers Viewpoint organizers had come to Greensboro in an effort to strengthen the unions at the Cone Mills textile plants. 

At the time, Cone Mills was the largest producer of denim in the world. 

African American millworkers faced discrimination and dangerous conditions, including breathing in textile dust that was known to potentially cause brown lung disease.

Tensions between the communist organizers and the Ku Klux Klan began to mount.

Disagreements also arose between the communists and other union organizing efforts in Greensboro.

The Workers Viewpoint group decided to hold a “Smash the Klan” demonstration.

They coordinated the route of the march with the local police. 

But on that fateful day no police were there to provide protection. 

In broad daylight cars filled with Klansmen and Nazi members drove up and opened fire on the demonstrators.   

Five people fell dead. 

A criminal trial was held in 1980, and a federal Civil Rights trial took place in 1984. 

Both times the defendants were acquitted by all-white juries. 

In 2004, Greensboro began a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” to address their community history. 

The second chapter of the final report, recounts how Milano Caudle, the Nazi who owned one of the vehicles driven that day, later bragged in an interview “that the Klan “destroyed the damn union” with its actions against the marchers.” 

After the tragedy, there was a strong backlash in the press against the communist organizers.