Researching the Greensboro Massacre at Wilson Library: Archival Sources in Wilson Library

Brown Lung Association Records, 1973-1983 (Collection 04463)

The Carolina Brown Lung Association (BLA) was founded in 1975. The BLA was involved in workers' advocacy and labor organizing through several different methods, including legislative lobbying and volunteer health clinics designed to screen textile workers for byssinosis, an occupational lung disease caused by breathing in cotton dust in industrial mills with insufficient air filtration. James Waller was a key early organizer with the BLA's outreach efforts with disabled workers, and was also one of the victims of the Greensboro Massacre. Records of the Greensboro chapter of the BLA provide insight into the organizing work that precipitated the CWP unionization push in several textile mills of the Greensboro area.

Robert E. Botsch Papers on the Brown Lung Association, 1978-1997 (Collection 05785)

This collection is comprised of paper and audio recordings of the Brown Lung Association compiled by Professor Robert E. Botsch during research for his 1993 publication, Organizing the Breathless. These records include newsletters, meeting agendas, pamphlets, and other materials produced by the BLA and related organizations, as well as audiocasettes of interviews with BLA organizers.

North Carolina Occupational and Health Safety Project Records, 1976-2002 (Collection 04578)

The North Carolina Occupational Safety and Health Project (NCOSH) was established by volunteers affiliated with the Brown Lung Association. Records in this collection include materials related to training and education work carried out by NCOSH volunteers related to occupational safety hazards, toxic chemicals, workers' compensation, and labor rights. Records related to Greensboro and the Cone Mills plants overlap with unionization efforts labor organizers were engaging in in North Carolina in the period preceding the 1979 massacre. 

John Kenyon Chapman Papers, 1969-2009 (Collection 05441)

John Kenyon "Yonni" Chapman was a social activist and historian who was also a survivor of the Greensboro Massacre. Chapman was involved with civil rights organizing and Black liberation movements in North Carolina during the seventies, eighties, and nineties. His papers include extensive photographic records of public response to the 1979 attack, as well as related protest movements and organizing efforts from the period.

Jim Wrenn Papers, 1977-2021 (Collection 05625)

Jim Wrenn was another survivor of the Greensboro Massacre. His papers include a digital scrapbook of the People's Coalition for Justice, created in 1977 with another survivor, Nelson Johnson.

Leah Wise Papers, ca. 1960-2010 (Collection 05645)

Leah Wise's papers include notes, publications, and internal documents of the National Anti-Klan Network (NAKN) from 1979-1982. These include notes, press coverage, correspondence, and group publications related to the 1979 Greensboro Massacre, as well as extensive tracking of the Klan and other hate groups during this period.

Bob Hall Papers, 1960s-2019 (Collection 05633)

Bob Hall is a social justice activist who was involved in organizing in North Carolina in the late 1970s and 1980s. His papers include publications from the Equal Rights Congress and the Greensboro Justice Fund related to the Greensboro Massacre. Additionally, this collection contains audiocassette interviews with BLA organizers in Greensboro, including James Waller.

Southerners for Economic Justice Records, 1977-2001 (Collection 05320) 

Founded in 1976, Southerners for Economic Justice did outreach and political organizing with textile workers to address economic inequality and exploitation. This collection includes information about North Carolinians Against Racist and Religious Violence (NCARRV), the Greensboro Coalition for Unity and Justice, and the Greensboro Justice Fund. Additionally, this collection also contains records of Klan membership and anti-Klan activism during this period.

Southern Justice Institute Records, 1978-1993 (Collection 04704)

The Southern Justice Institute (SJI) was initially the southern division of the Christic Institute, which legally represented massacre survivors in the Waller v. Butkovich suit. SJI was established in 1985 under director Lewis Pitts, and provided legal representation and organizing assistance to minority groups in the South for racial justice causes. These records provide insight into the legal cases that Pitts was involved in following the end of the 1985 Greensboro civil rights trial.

James Reston Jr. Papers, 1955-2018 (Collection 05692) 

James Reston Jr. was an investigative journalist who wrote the 1981 PBS Frontline documentary "88 Seconds in Greensboro," which explored the circumstances leading to the massacre, as well as the roles played by undercover informants in the planning and execution of the 1979 Klan-Nazi attack. Reston's papers regarding the Greensboro Massacre include correspondence and publicity materials related to "88 Seconds in Greensboro."

Jerome Friar Photographic Collection and Related Materials, 1978-2010 (Collection P0090)

Jerome Friar was a photojournalist from South Carolina who began his career by photographing a mass meeting of neo-Nazis in western North Carolina in 1980. His collections include coverage of Klan and Neo-Nazi organizing in North Carolina between the late seventies and the nineties.

Right: Johnston County: Frazier Glenn Miller Jr. Farm: Nazi rally, 19 April 1980.

In addition to manuscript material, Wilson Library preserves a variety of small-press publications related to the Greensboro Massacre. Many of these were written and printed by small presses associated with politically radical groups. One notable publication is "The Greensboro Massacre: Critical Lessons for the 1980s" by the Amilcar Cabral/Paul Robeson Collective, a collective of Black radicals from Greensboro who offered critiques of the tactics taken by the CWP in confronting the Klan. The publication "Red tide rising in the Carolinas" presents a conspiratorial interpretation of the Greensboro Massacre written by the white supremacist organization Western Goals.

Books written by massacre survivors 

Bermanzohn, Sally A. Through Survivors Eyes: From the sixties to the Greensboro Massacre. 2003.

Bermanzohn, Sally A. Survivors of the 1979 Greensboro Massacre : a study of the long term impact of protest movements on the political socialization of radical activists. 1994.

Bermanzohn, Paul C. & Sally A. The True Story of the Greensboro Massacre. 1980.

Waller, Signe. Love and Revolution: A political memoir. 2002. 

Left-wing small-press publications

Amilcar Cabral/Paul Robeson Collective. The Greensboro Massacre: Critical lessons for the 1980s. 1980. 

Communist Workers Party. Turn grief into strength! Avenge the CWP five! 1979.

Greensboro Justice Fund. The Greensboro massacre : labor under fire. 1981.

Revolutionary Communist Party. Never forgive or forget the Greensboro massacre : Nazis, Klan & kops go free, that's what the rich call democracy. 1980.

Right-wing small-press publications

Western Goals. Red tide rising in the Carolinas. 1980.

Official report conducted in the aftermath of the massacre

North Carolina Advisory Commission to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Black white perceptions : race relations in Greensboro: a report. 1981.