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On Sunday afternoon, the first of four Town Hall meetings to discuss the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's May report on the 1979 Klan-Nazi killings will be held at Bennett College. I'll have an article in Sunday's paper telling you more about it. Meanwhile, here are links to some posts from earlier in the year that stemmed from my covering the release of the report and subsequent events:

• From the Notebook: Truth Convention Tidbits
• More from the truth-commission convention

At this evening's Town Hall meeting to discuss the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report on the Nov. 3, 1979, Klan-Nazi killings, several students from UNCG who have studied their report shared their responses to it in the form of poetry. One of the students, Alicia Sowisdral, gave me a copy of the text to post here. It is in sections, with each section having been written and recited by different students (identified at the end of each section); Sowisdral edited the overall work.

Lyrical Reflections of November 3rd, 1979
Compiled and Edited By Alicia Sowisdral

Life at the mill ain’t been no thrill
America’s part of the KKK and they’re ready to kill
we’re overworked and underpaid.
Lord knows there are some changes to be made
The bastards upstairs wont give us a break
They don’t realize our lives are at stake
This isn’t just about race it’s more about class
even these white workers are being treated like trash
We try to speak out and are seen as a threat
but if they think I’m gonna shut up
that’s something they can forget
they don’t want us meeting or putting up signs
but for them to rally against us is just fine
I don’t even know when things all fell apart
at what point did the inequality start
I’ll tell you what, if we’re going to be saved
lord knows there are some changes to be made
- By Shanell Shaw and Savon Williams

In 1863
Good ol’ Abe declared to givus us free
Which puts the years from now
To one hundred and forty-three
Since slavery ended, so it’s said…
So why is it that now
I can’t get ahead?
Don’t get it twisted
It wasn’t no moral change of heart
This was a time of war
And a political decision to mend
The schism
And to get applause from those abroad
The federacy
wanted slavery
and Reconstruction
Still enslaving the
Freedmen wanting
To be men
Wanting to vote and treated
As equal, then
Now
We back there again
Treated as a second class
Citizens
It’s ’79 tryna stay alive
Wit these wages
We sleeping in cages
Give me my damn money
You see we hungry!
LOOK at these racial disparities
Education, wages, housing, health care, insanity
Twice as many of us living below poverty
Why can’t we be what we wanna be?
When all we want to be is free…
- By Jeanna Covington

FREE to be a young black man
who can take a stand
without you assuming there’s a gun in my hand
they tell me speech is free?
well not for me
my words are interpreted by what you see
a criminal
a liar
a troublemaker
a threat
and I ain’t even said nothing yet
but I’m the one you love to hate
not an equal citizen but an enemy of the state
so I flip a table or throw a chair
what I gotta do for you to see me here?
embody the stereotype of anger and rage
just to play a part on Americas stage
where the stories that are told
depend on the power you hold
But changes gonna come
I’ll show you I am someone
Tired of being overlooked
It’s time we write our own history book
not just about black and white
this is a story of civil rights
the Truth is we deserve to be heard
even if you can’t understand a single word
- By Micheal Craig

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about race
and I’ve spent a lot of time lookin’ at my face
tryin’ to get past my skin
to find what’s within
and you think I don’t see
how your looking at me
thinking cause I’m white
I ain’t got no right
to speak to another
about these stupid assumptions we assign by color
I don’t need you to like me
I don’t need you to care
but I need for myself to make you aware
even if its just for this moment right now
your gonna listen while I lay it down
Death to Klan is the headline that ran
in every paper around town
they spoke of burning the klan to the ground
like the fiery crosses left on many a lawn
but theirs was a metaphor and institutional claim
not a reality where thousands were hanged
the klan and the nazis perpetuate hate
that’s a matter of fact not up for debate
their words are vicious their actions the same
torture and killing is how they play the game
see, meritocracy is a myth if you want to buy in
to this commodity culture were living in
don’t nobody start with the same fair chances
life is all about circumstances
most of are controlled by another
especially if you a person of color
-By Alicia Sowisdral

but there were a few
who knew what they had to do
lead, organize and educate the masses
time to transcend all social classes
so they took the road to china grove
with no thought of the consequences their future would hold
pointing the finger at working conditions
forcing people to see the problems in the system
In the fight for equality
Five were gunned down
You didn’t want to remember
So you rearranged the ground
And you say they weren’t victims
for choosing to be there
But I doubt they chose
which bullet to wear
Sandi, Cesar, Mike, Bill and Jim
they all believed this was fight we could win
But the Truth was concealed about the events of that day
A group of men and women acting in ignorant ways
And still many deny the reason why
I guess it’s easier to swallow a lie
The killers were tried but slapped on the hand
where was the justice promised from our great land?
Instead the story was twisted and called a shootout
That day the light in Greensboro’s hall of justice went out.
-By Jami Daniels

But here is hope if you can see
Americas just a baby democracy
there’s still much to be learned in the land of the free
and to be brave we must not fear reality
So what now?
We’re past the point of assigning blame
but no longer will we carry this shame
we want recognition and justice at last
the only way to evolve is to learn from the past
we cant turn back time we cannot undo
but we must continue to seek out the truth
we are asking the city to say it out loud
we’re SORRY for the innocent blood on the ground
we’re SORRY the police didn’t serve and protect
we’re SORRY they weren’t present that day
to protect the people and keep the klan away
let this tragedy birth a new life
one of fairness and equality instead of suffering and strife
let all city workers be paid a living wage
and encourage those filled with hatred to overcome their rage
let’s instill in the youth the integrity to do for yourself
without exploiting somebody else
so future generations can lay a new foundation
and continue to build a more just nation
-By Alicia Sowisdral

I had another article Sunday on the delay many veterans experience in getting a response to their claims for disability benefits. Fortunately, with this one I was able to get a clearer picture of why these delays are occurring. Lots of factors contribute, and it's hard to say which ones are the biggest problems, but clearly the Veterans Benefits Administration needs more people, more productivity or both.

Given complaints by the Government Accountability Office (Congress's nonpartisan investigative arm) that the Department of Veterans Affairs hasn't sought any kind of budget increase to handle the increase in claims and that the department has claimed that productivity increases will help ease the backlog without explaining exactly how those productivity increases were going to be achieved, I think it's fair to say that this is a management problem.

Next up: Some oddnesses so odd that the GAO designated them a "crisis" -- almost four years ago.

After the first town-hall meeting to discuss the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report, eight days ago, I had a number of thoughts, but probably the one most on my mind since then has been this:

The people who were in that room needed to hear from people who weren't in that room -- that is, people who are skeptical of, or even hostile toward, the T&R process.

And vice versa.

And so I've wondered, to myself, to Steve Sumerford of the co-sponsoring Greensboro Public Library and to some e-mail correspondents I've heard from: Is there anything that can be done to ensure that both supporters and skeptics are represented among speakers at the next such town-hall meeting (March 11)?

I'm a reporter, not an organizer, so it's not my place to line up such people. At the same time, having lived here coming up on 20 years, I have roots and a stake in this community. If any good -- any reconciliation -- can come out of this process, I'd like for it to. But I don't see that happening without a broader range of voices at the table.

Today I'm gathering some local and state reaction to the news of the death of former President Gerald Ford. If you have any recollections to share -- particularly if you attended Ford's visits to Greensboro in October 1974 or March 1976 -- please call me at 373-7088 or e-mail me. Thanks!

Former Gov. Jim Martin, who represented North Carolina's 9th Congressional District from 1973 to 1985, had some things to say in today's article on the late President Ford that I didn't have room to lay out in the depth they really deserved.

Martin (full disclosure: a longtime friend of my late father's) pointed out that Ford faced some serious handicaps in trying to win a presidential term of his own after succeeding Richard Nixon in the summer of '74.

For one thing, one of the factors that had made him a confirmable successor to Spiro Agnew -- the fact that he had never run a national or even a Senate campaign -- also meant that he had no real following outside his own congressional district and the House Republican leadership. He was going to have to build one from scratch during his campaign after an abbreviated term tainted by the corruption of his predecessor.

For another, he assumed the presidency as a Republican when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and had for about a generation.
That fact alone meant that the number of confirmable candidates from whom he could pick someone to nominate for vice president was almost nil. He picked Nelson Rockefeller, a moderate and therefore someone at least some Democrats could be persuaded to vote to confirm. But in so doing, he angered some of his own party's conservatives, thus inadvertently laying the seeds for former California Gov. Ronald Reagan's insurgency during the 1976 primary season.

That insurgency failed as Ford finally clinched the nomination, but he was so weakened by the effort (as Jimmy Carter would be, four years later, by Edward Kennedy's insurgency) that he entered the fall campaign behind.

And, of course, there was the pardon of Nixon. Of all of these factors, it was the only one that was, so far as we know, completely within Ford's control.

And yet despite all these obstacles, in a horrendous year for Republicans, Ford and his campaign managers almost closed the gap between him and Jimmmy Carter by Election Day -- the 297-to-241 Electoral College margin was smaller than many had expected.

It's interesting to speculate on what would have happened had Ford won a full term. Would Ronald Reagan still have won in 1980? Or would the country have decided that 12 years of Republicans in the White House was enough?

Hard to say.

The N&R's 13th annual roundup of the idiotic, the ironic and the just plain weird is here. Enjoy.