History
Origins
The CWP enjoyed some success in textile cities of North Carolina. The new party established branches in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Greensboro, West Virginia, Colorado and other locations. Before forming itself into a party in October 1979 (the founding congress was held in the backroom of a discothèque in New York City), the group was known as the Workers Viewpoint Organization. Under its umbrella, it directed groups as the Revolutionary Youth League, the African Liberation Support Committee, and the Trade Union Education League.
1979 Greensboro Massacre
Confrontations with the Ku Klux Klan ("Klan" or "KKK") were particularly acute in Greensboro, North Carolina, where the Klan sought to disrupt the CWP's effort to unionize poor, black mill workers in the Greensboro area. In July 1979, the Klan held a rally and viewing of The Birth of a Nation in China Grove, near Charlotte, which was disrupted by CWP members who burned a Confederate flag and taunted members of the KKK. CWP leader Paul Bermanzohn taunted the Klan in the press, saying "The KKK is one of the most treacherous scum elements produced by the dying system of capitalism" and inviting further confrontation with "We challenge you to attend our rally in Greensboro."
On November 3, 1979, members of the KKK, including a police informant, and the American Nazi Party drove up to the "Death to the Klan" rally organized by the CWP. [4] The KKK were armed and opened fire on the anti-Klan rally, killing four members of the CWP and one non-affiliated participant. [4] These deaths became known as the "Greensboro Massacre." [4] Two subsequent trials of KKK and ANP members resulted in acquittals. [5] In response to the acquittals of the accused killers, the CWP attempted to storm the 1980 Democratic National Convention and succeeded in setting off firecrackers in Madison Square Garden. [6]
Ideology
From its earliest phase as the Workers' Viewpoint Organization, the CWP had considered itself as Maoist and supported the so-called Gang of Four after Mao's death. Following the line of Mao, it considered the Soviet Union and its bloc as restored capitalist countries. For some time after the arrest of the Gang of Four, the group remained silent about the events in China but later accused China also of having taken the capitalist road.
An article published in the Workers Viewpoint in 1976 criticised a social liberal and libertine view of sexuality as "the bourgeoisie’s attempts to dope us with degenerate culture and fascist ideology." The article opposed pornography as representing anti-woman American bourgeois hedonism (it singled out the film Snuff ) and argued that homosexuality "is a form of social sickness, a form of social perversion. It is a form of bourgeois ideology which appeals especially to the petty bourgeoisie because of its appearance as sexual freedom." [7]
In 1980, there was a dramatic reversal of this line. In his book The Socialist Road, CWP Chairman Jerry Tung announced that both the Soviet Union and China were socialist, although an unhealthy bureaucracy had taken shape in the governments of both countries.
Demise
Subsequent to the Greensboro massacre, the group gave up its Leninist structure and moved towards a social democratic formation that would work for peaceful transition to socialism; it dissolved the Communist Workers' Party and formed the New Democratic Movement in 1985. The New Democratic Movement lasted only a few years. The most important remnant of the CWP/NDM can be found in the Greensboro Justice Fund, which continues to this day and promotes groups struggling for social justice.
The Ku Klux Klan, commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is the name of an American white supremacist, far-right hate group. Various historians have characterized the Klan as America's first terrorist group. There have been three distinct iterations with various targets relative to time and place, including African Americans, Jews, and Catholics.
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The Greensboro massacre was a deadly confrontation which occurred on November 3, 1979, in Greensboro, North Carolina, US, when members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party (ANP) shot and killed five participants in a "Death to the Klan" march which was organized by the Communist Workers Party (CWP).
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Virgil Lee Griffin was a leader of a Ku Klux Klan chapter in North Carolina who was involved in the November 3, 1979, Greensboro massacre, a violent clash by the KKK and American Nazi Party with labor organizers and activists from the Communist Workers Party at a legal march in the county seat of Guilford County. It resulted in the deaths of five marchers, including a woman.
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The Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established in 2004 based on the violent events of November 3, 1979 in Greensboro, North Carolina. On that date, the Communist Workers Party (CWP) led by Nelson Johnson gathered at the Morningside Homes to protest for social and economic justice along with protesting against the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). The chant that united the 40–50 protesters was “death to the Klan”. Shortly after 11 am, a nine-vehicle convoy that contained 37 members of the KKK and the American Nazi Party arrived. After a short skirmish, the KKK and American Nazis retrieved their firearms and moments later, five protesters lay dead and ten others were wounded.
