A Dare That Ignited a Slaughter

Klansmen and Nazis go on trial for murder in Greensboro

The trial was already under way when a score of chanting demonstrators approached the courtroom doors. Guards informed the protesters that no one else would be allowed inside. Suddenly, a pushing match began, and officers wrestled one of the marchers to the ground. "Tell me, man, you're going to keep me out!" screamed Paul Bermanzohn, sitting in a wheelchair. "You try to live with a bullet in your head!"

That angry cry came from a victim of one of the South's bloodiest clashes in years, a fight on Nov. 3, 1979, that pitted one extremist group against another and deeply disturbed the town of Greensboro, N.C. Bermanzohn is a member of a leftist group called the Communist Workers Party, which until late last year had been known as the Workers Viewpoint Organization. Though W.V.O. members had been trying to organize textile workers, most of whom are black, in and around Greensboro, the first stir of trouble came last July in China Grove, N.C., when two W.V.O. workers invaded a Klan rally and burned a Confederate flag. When the W.V.O. organized a "Death to the Klan" rally and dared their enemies to appear, their enemies did.

As the Klansmen and their supporters drove up to the site of the rally in a black neighborhood, black and white W.V.O. marchers beat on their cars with sticks. Who fired first remains unclear and a key issue at the trial, but when police had finally restored order, five W.V.O. members, four white and one black, lay dead or dying, and seven W.V.O. demonstrators and one Klansman had been wounded. Last week four Klansmen and two members of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Party, who also showed up for the rally, were placed on trial for murder.

Initially, some blacks had blamed the city's police for failing to be better prepared for trouble at the well-publicized rally, but a U.S. Justice Department study cleared the force of any laxity. Nevertheless, a city ordinance now prohibits firearms within 500 ft. of a parade, and more officers are regularly assigned to cover public demonstrations. "Police are going to be seen at practically every event in Greensboro," says Chief W.E. Swing. "Low visibility worked for a number of years, but Nov. 3 changed all that."

The harsh memory lingers. "People are embarrassed this happened here," says one member of the district attorney's office in Greensboro. Many now fear that the trial will further harm the city's reputation. Says James Wright, the city's human relations director: "We're concerned how this event will be used as a stage. Lots of eyes are on Greensboro."

To ensure that the trial does not become a spectacle, Presiding Judge James Long ordered special security measures. Since the first day's fracas, however, no further violence has occurred at the trial, which last week was at the jury-selection stage. The trial is expected to last three months and involve more than 2,000 pieces of evidence. Jittery city officials considered canceling a lunchtime jazz concert scheduled outside the courthouse the day after the wrestling match in the hallway but finally decided to let it take place. And so, reassuringly, blacks and whites gathered in the warm sunshine of Greensboro to munch hot dogs and tap their toes to musical riffs just a few dozen yards from the site of a trail with bitter racial overtones.

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