Greensboro’s Child

OK… I’ve had a lot of time to think about what the next steps should be with this documentary. I’ve gotten incredible feedback from the viewers at the screenings in Greensboro.

• Should I submit it to more film festivals?
• What about distribution?
• How about making copies available for schools?

All of those were great suggestions that I would be happy to oblidge. Thanks to the smart people at revver.com I’m now making my documentary available on-line for anyone to watch. Just click over to the Theater section and I will be putting up the documentary in seqments. There will be 8 segments. I will set up one each week on a rotation.

I have a job for you… Let television networks, film festivals and distributors know about it. Email them and keep commenting, love the feedback.

Lewis Pitts explains how the prosecuting attorney selected jurors for the State Trial for the November 3rd, 1979 shootings:

From the News & Record article, Blame for shooting shared, report says:

[…]

The all-white jury in the state criminal trial was caused by a “problematic jury selection process.” Before 1986, defense attorneys and prosecutors could strike a potential juror from the pool based on race.

On Thursday night, former District Attorney Mike Schlosser, who tried the state criminal cases, said he agreed with those findings. Defense attorneys dismissed black jurors, which he said hampered his efforts to convict the Klansmen.

“It would have been much more fair to have a jury that represented the community,” he said.

[…]

Much was made over the years about the jury have zero African-American representation, but no one seemed to care about the prosecuting attorney’s public attitude towards communism and his proclivity to allow obvious anti-Communist citizens to sit on the jury.

These actions are more damning than not having a jury representing a mix of races, as they were prosecuting Klan and Nazi members for killing Communist Worker Party members.

On the flip side of the coin, the Klan members had court appointed attorneys representing them, who just so happened to be the top defense attorneys in Greensboro at that time.

The Greensboro Public Library has acquired 8 copies of Greensboro’s Child. Below is a map of the local branches where you can pick up a copy.

Head out and borrow a copy for free and come back here leave a review and let’s talk. It should be a week before it makes it into rotation.

Willena Cannon has experienced life to the extreme. She has helped poor people and the homeless throughout her life. When she said this short statement it went way over my head and I thought it was a little ridiculous.

I was 23 years-old at the time I shot this clip. As I’ve experienced life over the past nine years, I can now begin to understand why she would say something along those lines.

What do you think?

After the defendants in the shootings were twice acquitted in state and federal trials, a civil trial found that Klansmen, Nazis and members of the Greensboro Police Department were jointly liable for the wrongful death of one of the five CWP members killed.

Instead of appealing the decision, the city of Greensboro decided to to pick up the civil trial award tab — $395,000 — for all of the defendants.

Jim Melvin, Mayor of Greensboro from 1971 to 1981, provides context behind the decision:

On Friday May 26th, 2006 The GTRC held a public hearing to officially wrap up their two years-worth of research into the events surrounding the Greensboro Massacre.

Unless you go through the evidence yourself and speak to both the survivors and citizens of Greensboro that lived through the experience of 11/3, you’ll never truly understand how scary that day was. Residual effects continue to affect many people in this community.

I salute the commission for taking on a project that invited them into such a frightening reality, one that so many of us have tried to sweep under the rug over the years. I say good for you and great for Greensboro.

A preview of the first couple of minutes of Greensboro’s Child.

It’s hard to believe that I started this documentary back in ‘97. I was an amateur, in college, holding a mic and pointing a camera at an interviewee, with a light kit set up in no particular order and no clue as to the importance of white balancing.

Well, you live and learn. And have I ever learned some valuable lessons working on this documentary.

Today is the first public screening in Greensboro since it won, “Best Independent Documentary” at the North Carolina Film and Video Festival in 2002. The current version now has a soundtrack and is 15 minutes shorter than the award-winning version.

I have many people to thank for making this opportunity a reality:

• My brother, Sean Coon — for his amazing blogging skills and great mind for creating avenues that I can take advantage of…
• John Ford — Thanks so much for taking Sean’s design and making this blog functional. We couldn’t have done it without your help.
• Jonathan Daniel - Another brilliant web guru giving some of his genius to help make this site a reality.
• The Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission - For getting my interest back into this subject material and sticking out their chins by taking on this monumental task.
• Dale and Lowell at The Scene on South Elm for screening it.
• Lastly, Willena and Kwame Cannon — for allowing me to stick my nose into their lives.

I look forward to meeting you tonight at the screening.

Tonight, May 25 7:00 PM & 9:00 PM and tommorow night at 7:00 PM

This song is told through the eyes of one of the victims of November 3rd 1979.

Scott is a great guy and very compassionate music writer. I came across Scott due to his admiration of my documentary. He compared 3 films about the Greensboro Massacre for his thesis paper at Guilford College. I was taken aback when a mutual friend handed me a manilla envelop with his thesis in it, as I had never met Scott before. The precision of his interpretation of my documentary was astounding.

The three programs that he dissected were A&E’s “Clash With the Klan”, The History Channel Documentary “The Lawbreakers” and Greensboro’s Child.

His perspective opened my eyes to what I was doing right and what the TV programs were doing wrong.

This is footage of the November 3rd, 1979 anti-Klan rally held in Greensboro, NC named, Death to The Klan.

The organization that promoted and held the rally was named the Communist Workers Party (CWP). The people slowly rolling up in the cars are with KKK and Nazi groups from around NC, looking to confront the “communist protestors.”

Five CWP members were murdered on that day, with either the violence or their explicit deaths captured on film. After watching this attack, keep in mind that the Klan members were all acquitted of murder on a self-defense plea, even though this footage was used as evidence in the state trial.

This injustice is exactly why Greensboro is hosting the first Truth & Reconciliation Commission ever within the United States.