News-Record.com

Ellen, Hate to be the one to point this out but something that happened twenty six years ago is NOT recent history. And if those around twenty six years ago are still so traumatized about the events of 1979 I doubt if talking it out will solve anything. IMHO they need a good therapist, a qualified individual who can help them move on with their lives. Many, many people who suffer much greater tragedy manage to move past their trauma to lead productive lives.

It is beyond me how talking about your feelings of twenty six years ago in a public forum has any healing powers. Perhaps it's just the skeptic in me but like most I'm highly suspicious of the motivations of some.

All I can say is this member of the League of Men Voters couldn't care less if he tried.

Yvonne, you're right that it's not recent history, but your comments suggest that what took place in 1979 is ancient history, and I would not go that far either.

We each selectively hold onto the history we want to hold onto.

You would think some of the critics of the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission would be even more vocal against those who still like to celebrate the Confederacy.

Talk about holding on for dear life to ancient history!

Members of the CWP didn't like the conditions they perceived in 1979. They embraced a communist organization, which automatically is perceived by some as the greatest act of treason one can commit against our country.

The South behaved similarly to the CWP. Many Southerners did not like the way things were, and they went so far as to endorse breaking away from the United States of America to form the Confederacy. What greater act of treason could there be? It's never presented that way, at least not around here, but how else can you label it?

Reconstruction, by all accounts, was much more deeply flawed than the truth and reconciliation process that has been set up.

Weren't similar mistakes to how reconstruction was handled made in how certain countries were treated after world wars?

What our city's Truth and Reconciliation Commission does over the next few months will ultimately determine how it should be judged.

I'm inclined to think that there are more worthwile past conflicts than our city's that could benefit from truth and reconciliation efforts.

The OJ Simpson trial and its aftermath strike me as more polarizing and therefore more worthy of such a process than the confrontation between the CWP and the Klan/Nazis.

The murder of Henry Marrow that took place in Oxford, North Carolina in 1970 and how that community responded--then and more recently--seems like another case begging for truth and reconciliation.

The commission's approach has not been tried in this country before.

It is very much a trial, and there probably will inevitably be some error.

The case chosen for that trial is arguably an imperfect choice for the process, but if there's even some success with it, might it not be in the future applied to more worthy cases?

Maybe, for example, if we'd used the process as segregation slowly eroded, we might be further along today than we are.

We've managed to come a long way without that T & R process, but is it not worth asking if it might have helped speed up the process?

Could it have helped treat the deepest wounds better?

Some of these questions might be worth considering.

Yvonne, I may have to have some therepy myself,for I find myself in complete agreement with you. And I'm not even running a fever.
I will say this: You say "it is beyond me how talking about your feelings of 26 years ago in a public forum has any healing powers". It has nothing to do with healing, it has to do with keeping the flames of racial hatred stirred in hopes of eventually winning a huge cash verdict against the city.
See, I can hum a different tune.

Save your efforts. Those who ardently support this thing do so with an almost religious zeal. The rest of of who are still hinged seem to have a good fix on the hidden agenda of the communist workers party and its apologists.
Outsiders, interlopers, aliens- there was no municipal complicity, and just like the shrill harpies that tried to take down two of Greensboro's finest some years back, they will not succeed. The good citizens of Greensboro DON'T CARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The T&R farce is a program looking for a cause. What happened in 1979 is irrelevant, and is only being used as a pretext for implementing a program that certain people are staged to benefit from. Seymour Hardy Floyd virtually admits as much by stating "The commission's approach has not been tried in this country before. It is very much a trial, and there probably will inevitably be some error. The case chosen for that trial is arguably an imperfect choice for the process, but if there's even some success with it, might it not be in the future applied to more worthy cases?".

It has nothing to do with G'boro or what happened here. It's all about a process that gives relevance (and whatever else) to certain individuals. That's why it needs to be nipped in the bud now.