Researching the Greensboro Massacre at Wilson Library: Greensboro Massacre Timeline and Key Organizations

This page includes information on the circumstances of the Greensboro Massacre, a timeline of events leading up to November 3rd, 1979, and information about several key organizations and individuals involved in this history. This list of figures and organizations is non-exhaustive, and is meant to serve as a reference point for navigating and making sense of archival materials and scholarship related to this event.

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The Greensboro Massacre occurred within the context of heightened Klan recruitment in North Carolina in the late seventies and early eighties. Nationally, there was a noted increase in Klan and other white supremacist organizing following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, which redrew lines of alliance among domestic white supremacist groups that did not historically cooperate together, such as Neo-Nazis and Klansmen. Many Klansmen of this period connected anticommunist violence in Vietnam with their own paramilitary organizing, articulating a "lost cause" narrative of the Vietnam War that resonated with earlier "lost cause" narratives of the Civil War. For more information on this phenomenon and its relevance to this history, see Kathleen Belew's chapter "A Unified Movement" in Bring the War Home. 

Simultaneous to this uptick in organized Klan violence, there was a high degree of political organizing for economic, social, and racial justice efforts in the Piedmont at this time. Many of these movements grew out of Black civil rights organizing in the South, student organizing and antiwar movements and New Left labor organizing. Many of the anti-Klan protesters that were killed or injured during the Greensboro Massacre were involved in related protest movements and coalition-building efforts in North Carolina during this time, including the campaign to free the Wilmington Ten, the campaign to free the Charlotte Three, and unionization pushes at various major hospitals.

During this period, several medical workers from the Triangle (Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh) who were involved with the Communist Workers Party (CWP) became convinced that the most effective way to advocate for workers was to take jobs working in industrial mills and leverage union organizing to advocate for workers' health protections. This coincided with efforts to develop and enforce occupational safety and health standards in textile mills, particularly for workers that were disabled by an occupational health disease called "brown lung" — also known as byssinosis. Existing occupational safety and health standards at the time were insufficient, and as a result many workers were developing persistent respiratory problems from exposure to cotton dust in industrial mills with poor air filtration. Two major groups involved in these lobbying and public education efforts were the Brown Lung Association and North Carolina Occupational Safety and Health.

After becoming involved in industrial mills in Greensboro, CWP members from the Triangle connected with several Black activists who had been organizing in Greensboro for years. These included Sandi Smith, a nursing student who founded Student Organizing for Black Unity while at Bennett College, and Nelson Johnson, a Black radical and founder of the Greensboro Association of Poor People (GAPP). At the time of her death, Sandi Smith was the head of an organizing committee leading a unionization push at Cone Mills Revolution Mills plant. For more information on Black liberation organizing in Greensboro in the sixties and seventies, see Black Power in Greensboro through Civil Rights Greensboro, or visit Published Sources. 

— July - November 2, 1979 —

July 8 — Confrontation took place between Federated Knights of the KKK (FKKKK) and the CWP in China Grove during a Klan recruitment drive screening of "Birth of a Nation." Klansmen were forced to hide in community center to avoid anti-Klan demonstrators that surrounded the building. Protestors to this Klan screening included CWP members and members of the Black community in China Grove.

Early July — Shortly after the confrontation in China Grove, Bernard Butkovich, an agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF), approached Harold Covington in Parma, Ohio. At the time, Covington was the North Carolina leader of the American Nazi Party (ANP). Butkovich posed as a long-distance trucker in order to infiltrate the Winston-Salem chapter of the ANP. Covington connected Butkovich to Roland Wayne Wood, a Neo-Nazi leader in Winston-Salem.

Late July — Butkovich joined Wood's Neo-Nazi unit in Winston. In later testimonies, Neo-Nazis from this unit testified that Butkovich offered to upgrade their arsenal, procure grenades, carry out training in commando tactics, and adapt firearms from semi-automatic to automatic.

September 22-23 — Virgil Griffin (Invisible Empire KKK), Harold Covington (American Nazi Party), and Gorrell Pierce (Grand Dragon, Federated Knights KKK) made the decision to form a United Racist Front (URF). Butkovich was present for the formation of the URF.

October 4 — CWP announced a "Death to the Klan" march to be held in Greensboro.

October 18 — Dawson met with detectives from Intelligence Department in the Greensboro Police department, and attended a CWP meeting, reporting back that he found the group “very hostile.”

October 19 — Dawson reported his findings to the Greensboro Police Department, and was asked if Klan planned to attend November 3 march. Dawson called Virgil Griffin later that day, and was invited to speak at the meeting next night.

October 20 — Invisible Empire KKK held a march and rally of 80 people in Lincoln County. Dawson was a featured speaker, and gave a “fiery speech” encouraging Klan to confront the CWP on November 3.

October 21 — Dawson reported back to Greensboro Police Intelligence Department Detective Jerry "Rooster" Cooper that 250 Klan would come to Greensboro. Later that day, Dawson spoke with the FBI about the CWP.

October 22 — According to his testimony, Dawson contacted the FBI to determine whether the CWP and the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) were the same organization. 

October 23 — According to Greensboro FBI agent Andrew Pelzcar, the FBI opened an investigation into the CWP on this day. FBI superiors later denied that such an investigation took place. URF held a meeting in Winston-Salem.

October 28 — Another Klan meeting was held in Lincoln County. Dawson and Griffin urged Klansmen to attack CWP at the November 3 march. Dawson designed and hung fliers with lynching imagery to cover CWP fliers for the "Death to the Klan" march.

October 31 — Dawson reported to GPD Lieutenant Spoon and obtained a copy of the CWP parade permit from the police captain. That permit included information about a meeting point that was not publicly shared on the "Death to the Klan" march flyers, giving the URF advanced knowledge of where they could ambush the CWP that morning. Afterwards, Dawson attended a press conference held by CWP outside of Greensboro Police Department, speaking to Nelson Johnson and Paul Bermanzohn and introducing himself as a “small business man.”

November 1 — Butkovich and Dawson attended a Neo-Nazi planning meeting in Winston. Jerry Paul Smith and Roland Wayne Wood present.

November 2 — Virgil Griffin addressed the URF in Lincoln County, calling for a "show of force" on November 3. Later that night, Dawson, Griffin, and other Klansmen scouted out the parade route before returning to Brent Fletcher’s house.

 — November 3, 1979 —

Before 10am — Klansmen convened at the home of Brent Fletcher.

10am — Dawson briefly returned home to speak with Detective Cooper on the phone, informing him that the Klan was armed and there would be imminent violence. He then rejoined Klansmen gathered at Fletcher's home.

10:25am — Dawson gave the order to move out and rode in the lead car of a caravan of 10 cars with approximately 40 people.

11:06am — Klan caravan waited at the Interstate ramp to rendezvous with Neo-Nazi Jack Fowler.

11:13am — Fowler arrived with weapons and automatic rifle in his trunk, and Dawson directed him to follow at the rear of the caravan. 

11:20am — Klan-Nazi caravan arrived at Morningside Homes, where around 150 demonstrators had convened for to the start of the march to a nearby community center. The lead car of the caravan stopped at the intersection of Everitt Street and Carver Drive. After parking the lead car, Klansmen and Nazis exited their cars, and began unloading weapons from car in the rear of the caravan. The attack that followed lasted for 88 seconds.

Four people were killed at the site of Morningside Homes: Sandra Neely Smith, César Cauce, James Waller, and Bill Sampson. Dr. Michael Nathan was shot and died two days later in the hospital, on November 5th. Eleven others were wounded or seriously injured in the attack. Extensive footage of the ambush was recorded by local camera crews present at Morningside to cover the anti-Klan march.

For more information on the aftermath of the massacre, and the community and media response to the Klan-Nazi killings, see resources linked in Published Sources and the page for History of the Greensboro Civil Rights Fund.

Sources:

Bermanzohn, Sally. "Countdown to a massacre" in Through survivors' eyes: from the sixties to the Greensboro Massacre. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. 2003.

"Correspondence: June 1981" in the James Reston Jr. Papers (Collection 05692), Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission Final Report. Greensboro, NC: Greensboro Truth & Reconciliation Commission. 2006.

WGBH (Television station : Boston, Mass.). 88 seconds in Greensboro. Boston, MA: WGBH Transcripts. 1983. 

Wheaton, Elizabeth. Codename GREENKIL: the 1979 Greensboro killings. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. 2009.

Communist Workers Party (CWP) — The CWP was a far-left communist group that developed out of the Asian Study Group established in 1973 by Jerry Tung. Prior to October 1979, the CWP was known as the Workers Viewpoint Organization (WVO). At the time of the Greensboro Massacre, the CWP had branches in several major U.S. cities, including New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Greensboro. Four of the five victims of the Greensboro Massacre were members of the CWP at the time of their deaths, and had been involved in union organizing at various textile mills in Greensboro in the final months of their lives. The fourth victim, Michael Nathan, was the husband of Marty Nathan, who was active in the CWP at the time. 

Greensboro Justice Fund (GJF) and Greensboro Civil Rights Fund (GCRF) — These overlapping but distinct organizations were formed in the years immediately following the massacre, the GJF in 1980 and the GCRF in 1981. Spearheaded by partners of those killed during the massacre and survivors who were wounded and/or wrongfully arrested on November 3rd, the GJF and GCRF were central to the legal suits mounted against perpetrators of the massacre. Survivors mentioned here are those that were involved in the Waller v. Butkovich civil rights suit. 

Partners of those killed on November 3rd — Signe Waller, Dale Sampson, Marty Nathan, Floris Cauce, Mark D. Smith

Other massacre survivors — Nelson Johnson, Paul Bermanzohn, Sally Bermanzohn, Tom Clark, Willena Cannon, Donald Pelles, Frankie Powell, Lacie Russell, Rand Manzella, Dorothy and Alan Blitz, James Wrenn

Christic Institute — This Christic Institute was a public interest law firm and interfaith public policy center based in Washington, D.C. that was founded in 1980 by Daniel Sheehan, Sara Nelson, and William Davis following the completion of the Karen Silkwood case. The Christic Institute became involved in the Greensboro case after attorney Lewis Pitts visited North Carolina in 1981. Other law firms involved with the Greensboro case included Thomas & McAllister and the People's Law Office.

Lewis Pitts — Pitts was the coordinating and chief trial attorney to the Greensboro Civil Rights case, and also served as the director of the GCRF. He was central to media and outreach efforts regarding the civil rights suit. 

Daniel Sheehan — Sheehan served as trial counsel, supervised the civil rights investigation, and recruited board members for the GCRF.

Organizations that supported the civil rights suit — Several community organizing groups were established in the aftermath of the Greensboro Massacre. These included both Greensboro-specific organizations, such as Citizens for Justice and Unity (CJU) and Concerned Citizens of the November 3rd Incident, as well as national organizations such as the National Lawyer's Guild, the Racial Justice Working Group of the National Council of Churches, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the Congressional Black Caucus. Two other notable groups were the National Anti-Klan Network (NAKN), which was created in 1979 as a direct result of the massacre, and North Carolinians Against Racial and Religious Violence (NCARRV).

National Anti-Klan Network (NAKN) — Formed by Anne Braden and other concerned citizens in 1979 in response to surging Klan activity in North Carolina, NAKN played a key role in publicizing and tracking Klan violence in North Carolina and nationally by drawing attention to Justice Department and law enforcement complacency to Klan terror during the 1980s and 1990s. NAKN is now known as the Center for Democratic Renewal, and is based in Atlanta.

North Carolinians Against Racial and Religious Violence (NCARRV) — Active from 1983 to 1997, NCARRV was an organizing group based in Durham that documented hate crimes and hate group activity in North Carolina. NCARRV worked to raise public awareness of white supremacist violence and influence public policy in the eighties and nineties. 

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) — Between 1956 and 1971, the FBI carried out a series of covert projects that involved infiltrating and disrupting domestic radical groups deemed to be "subversive" through undercover agents, provocateurs, and informants. These projects were collectively referred to as the Counter Intelligence Program, or COINTELPRO. Exposure of the extent of these surveillance activities through the Watergate scandal (1972-1974) and the Church Committee (1975) led to major public backlash. In 1976, Congressional restrictions were placed on the use of informants to infiltrate domestic political groups. There was significant FBI involvement in Klan organizing during the civil rights movement of the sixties, with North Carolina's Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. being an example of this phenomenon.

Edward Dawson — Klansman and informant for the FBI from 1970 to 1977. Dawson had been involved in the Klan since the early sixties, and first became involved with the FBI in the late sixties after he was arrested for terrorizing a Black neighborhood in Swan Quarter, NC. Dawson remained on the FBI payroll into the late seventies, despite post-Watergate restrictions on the use of informants.

Len Bogaty — FBI Special Agent based in Greensboro who was in contact with Dawson prior to the November 3rd massacre. Bogaty worked as an FBI agent from 1963 to 1987.

Thomas Brereton — Brereton was an FBI agent from 1968 to 1988, and was assigned to be the chief investigator of the FBI and Justice Department for the 1979 Greensboro killings. Files from the GREENKIL FBI investigation obtained through FOIA can be found through Internet Archive. 

William H. Webster — Webster served as the director of the FBI from 1978 to 1987. He was involved in designing and implementing FBI policies for informant-provocateurs at the time of the Greensboro Massacre. 

Greensboro Police Department (GPD) — The GPD held several planning meetings related to the November 3rd march and police response to a potential Klan attack on anti-Klan demonstrators. At the time of the November 3rd march, there was longstanding animosity between the CWP and the GPD, which is why the GPD elected to maintain a "low profile" approach to covering the march. A tactical squad was also assigned to cover the march, after Sergeant Comer expressed doubt that the six officers assigned to cover the march could adequately respond to the anticipated 80-85 Klansmen and Nazis that GPD had been informed by Dawson could be expected in Greensboro on November 3rd. Two Greensboro officers responsible for planning and coordinating police coverage of the march were found guilty for the wrongful death of Michael Nathan in the 1985 civil rights suit — Detective Cooper and Lieutenant Spoon.

Chief William Swing — GPD Chief of Police at the time of the massacre

Detective Jerry "Rooster" Cooper — Detective Cooper was an officer with the GPD since 1966, but was assigned to the Special Investigation Squad of the Criminal Investigations Division in 1979. Cooper was one of Edward Dawson's main contacts with the GPD prior to the massacre, and had advanced knowledge of Klan and Neo-Nazi planning prior to the attack.

Lieutenant Paul William Spoon — Lieutenant Spoon was the GPD officer assigned as event commander to coordinate GPD coverage of the November 3rd march.

Sergeant W. D. "Dave" Comer — Sergeant Comer was appointed by Lieutenant Spoon to provide coverage for the November 3rd march and coordinate police assignments and activities along the march route. 

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF)  — The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, referred to as the BATF or the ATF, was officially established as an independent bureau of the Treasury Department in 1972. The BATF was founded as a domestic law enforcement agency to investigate and regulate the unlawful trade, manufacture, and use of firearms and explosives, and to regulate the illegal sale of alcohol and tobacco products. The BATF experienced several scandals in the late seventies and eighties related to BATF enforcement tactics. One of the two undercover informants involved in the events leading to the Greensboro Massacre was a BATF agent based out of Ohio, Bernard Butkovich. 

Bernard Butkovich — Butkovich was an undercover informant who infiltrated Forsyth County unit of the American Nazi Party by posing as a long-distance trucker. 

Robert Fulton Dukes — Dukes was Butkovich's most direct contact with the ATF in the weeks leading to November 3rd, 1979.

Glenn R. Dickerson — Dickerson served as the director of the BATF from February 1979 to 1982.

Miles Keathley — Keathley was appointed Assistant Director of Criminal Enforcement for the BATF in 1978.

White supremacist groups — There were several Klan Klaverns, Neo-Nazi groups, and other white supremacist groups active in North Carolina in the seventies and eighties. Groups included the North Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Invisible Empire Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, United Klans of America, the American Nazi Party (also known as the National Socialist Party of America or the National Socialist White Peoples Party), and the Wilmington-based Rights of White People. Virgil Griffin was the grand dragon of the NC KKKK from 1971 to 1976, when Dawson defeated him in a Klan election and disbanded the group. Names listed here are members of white supremacist and Neo-Nazi groups that were directly involved in the planning or execution of the Greensboro Massacre.

Klansmen — Virgil Griffin (grand dragon), Chris Benson, Michael Eugene Clinton, Edward Dawson, Harold Dean Flowers, Billy Joe Franklin, Terry Wayne Hartsoe, David Wayne Matthews, Lee Joseph McLain, Lawrence Gene Morgan, Carl Nappier, Coleman Blair Pridemore, Mark Sherer, Jerry Paul Smith, Roy Clinton Toney

Neo-Nazis — Roland Wayne Wood, Raeford Caudle, Harold Covington, Jack Fowler, Frazier Glenn Miller

Rights of White People — Leroy Gibson