Truth commission: Council vote won't stop work
(The following is a press release from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 21, 2005
TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION THANKS CITY COUNCIL
GREENSBORO, N.C. - The Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission, whose history-making work has been the subject of local debate culminating with the City Council's action on Tuesday, April 19, remains committed to completing its work with transparency and impartiality.
The Council's 6-3 vote against endorsing the Commission's work of seeking the truth and working for reconciliation around the shootings of Nov. 3, 1979, will do nothing to stop it.
"We deeply appreciate the vote and accept the enormous challenge it represents," said Bob Peters, Commission co-chair. "We are challenged to more effectively communicate to the City Council and the community about the work we are doing and the spirit in which we are doing it, and to produce an end result that will speak for itself."
The Commission assures the community, in response to concerns raised by Councilwoman Florence Gatten, that answers about our finances are readily available from members of the Commission, its staff and the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro, which manages our funds. Also, our research team is completely impartial and interested in hearing from as many people as possible and from all points of view.
The Commission is funded by a combination of private donations and foundation grants, including $15,000 from private local and national donors who believe in this work.
While we have applications currently under consideration by several local and national foundations, funds have been received so far from two national foundations: the Andrus Family Fund and the JEHT Foundation.
The Andrus Family Fund, which provided a $60,000 grant, is a sub-fund of the Surdna Foundation, founded by family patriarch John Emory Andrus in 1917. Community reconciliation is one of its focus areas. For more information, visit www.affund.org.
The JEHT Foundation, which made a $75,000 grant, was established in April 2000. Its name stands for the core values that underlie its mission: Justice, Equality, Human dignity and Tolerance. For more information, visit www.jehtfoundation.org.
Central to the Commission's work, which is modeled on truth-seeking efforts in South Africa, Peru and elsewhere, is collecting statements – the oral or written individual stories of people who experienced Nov. 3, 1979, in various ways.
About 50 people so far have either already given or expressed interest in making statements. Not all of these statement givers were supporters of the Communist Workers Party, nor do all support the idea of the Commission. All statement-makers are welcomed with gratitude and respect.
Dr. Emily Harwell, the Commission's research director, who has previous experience in conducting impartial research for the East Timor Truth and Reconciliation Commission, is making special efforts to reach current and former members of the Ku Klux Klan, the American Nazi Party and the National Socialist Movement and their families to tell their stories.
Other useful information will come from textile workers and managers, police and court personnel, news reporters and editors, former Morningside residents or residents of other public housing neighborhoods, businesspeople, community organizers, college students, elected officials and everyday residents of all perspectives. People with insights on background issues such as race, economics, labor, political organizing and police-community relations also are urged to make statements. (Anyone interested in making statements should call 336-275-6462 or e-mail info@greensborotrc.org.)
The Commission's final report, as well as its public hearings and various other community forums, will give voice to the community's collective experience of the traumatic event and its aftermath. The report, to be completed in early 2006, will include specific recommendations for the Greensboro community and its institutions for concrete healing, reconciliation and restorative justice.
With a five-member staff, volunteers and collaborations with a wide range of community organizations, the Commission hopes its work will become a model that other American communities can use to address incidents of unresolved injustice in their own histories.
Created through a public nomination and selection process, the independent Commission is mandated to objectively examine "the context, causes, sequence and consequence" of Nov. 3, 1979, when Klan and Nazi members killed five labor organizers and wounded ten others at a rally organized by the Communist Workers Party.
The defendants were twice acquitted in state and federal trials. However, a civil trial found that Klansmen, Nazis and members of the Greensboro Police Department were jointly liable for wrongful death for one of the five killed. Given the confusion caused by these verdicts and the volume of rumors and misinformation that surrounded these events and their aftermath, the Greensboro community has been deeply divided in its collective understanding of what actually happened and why.
The International Center for Transitional Justice (www.ictj.org), an agency created by one of the architects of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, is serving as a consultant for the Commission, as it has for similar efforts in nations including Peru, Colombia, Guatemala and Sierra Leone.
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Comments (2)
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those counsilers is rasist. why dont they git with the program. they is rasist.
Posted on April 22, 2005 1:31 PM
It is about money. The truth commission wan"ts another 300 thousand dollars of taxpayers money to study the problem,and have a good time.
Posted on April 23, 2005 7:58 PM