News-Record.com

Every time I publish a story related to the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation report and its aftermath, I hear from people either curious or angry about why the N&R, almost a year after the release of the report, continues to cover it.

My short answer is this: because they tell me to. And my long answer wouldn't be much longer. I'm a general-assignment reporter these days; my assignments trend toward the odd one-day assignment or weather story. The only thing I've been specifically asked to follow is the T&R fallout, specifically what has happened since the report release, not what led up to that point.

I've heard a lot of different reasons why we should give up TRC coverage. Some of the reasons for us to give up that coverage are more logical, more courteous or both than others. For example, I heard from someone who pointed out the opportunity cost to the paper of having me follow this issue -- there might be better stories out there that won't get into the paper because I'm busy following something TRC-related, in other words. That's a legitimate concern. And in real life, many such coverage decisions are subjective, even when a news operation runs under some recognized guidelines, such as "local, local, local" or "whenever possible, look forward, not back" or what-have-you. There's no set or matrix of rules into which you can feed your info and get the "right" decision all the time.

But the one argument I really don't get is the notion that because the events of Nov. 3, 1979, happened so long ago, they don't matter. That argument comes in two flavors. One refers specifically to that case; and I won't get into that here.

But some correspondents appear to be saying not just that this particular case is ancient history and has nothing to tell us, but that all history has nothing to tell us.

I'm happy to take on that second issue, irrespective of my current assignment, because it's so patently false, particularly here in the South, with our oral-history tradition stemming back to the days of both the earliest Scots-Irish settlers and the African slaves who were brought here. William Faulkner famously got it: The past isn't dead here, he said -- it isn't even past.

So let's say you think anything that happened only 28 years ago doesn't matter. OK. Fine. Perfectly respectable opinion. But I'm curious: How old do things have to be before they cease to matter?

Do events that happened six years ago matter?

How 'bout 21 years ago?

Does even more ancient history than that matter? How 'bout 47 years? I ask because a lot of people in Greensboro seem to think it does and celebrate it every year.

Do you think even more ancient history matters?

What about this case, whose fallout continues to affect society even today? (My own connection to this case is here.)

How 'bout these folks (and the folks not affiliated with this group who nonetheless sport Confederate flags on their vehicles or fly Confederate flags in their yards)?

Oh, and how 'bout these folks?

For that matter, how 'bout these folks and their even more ancient history? Is that history no longer meaningful?

There's a reason we've been studying history at least since Herodotus -- and, one might argue, even longer than that -- is that history will teach us, if we let it.

Society derives huge benefits from examining and learning from history. For that history is littered with incidents in which the great and powerful harmed the small and weak, without punishment or other repercussions. And inevitably, it's the great and powerful who resist going back and examining those harms, even if the likelihood of repercussion is zero.

And here the rest of society must ask: What are you so afraid of?

And that question must be asked; otherwise, for the harmed, the harm frequently becomes inseparable from the other parts of their lives. Those who haven't been harmed utterly fail to grasp this fact because they haven't experienced it for themselves. Water, after all, isn't the only thing that flows downhill.

But here's the problem with ignoring the wrongs and the hurt that litter our past -- and I am indebted to the old comic books I read as a kid for the imagery: You can cover up the past all you want, but often it won't do any good. If you clean and bind the wounds of past harm, and acknowledge the loss and grief of those to whom it happened or their survivors, then you can bury it and perhaps it will rest easy.

But if you don't, then don't be surprised if, as you walk through the garden, smelling the magnolias and enjoying the evening air, a rotting hand reaches up from the ground and grabs you and won't let go. Sometimes the dead don't stay buried.