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Greensboro Apologizes For Klan-Nazi Shootings

Attendees applaud Greensboro City Council's decision to apologize for the city's role in the 1979 Klan-Nazi shootings. (Photo courtesy Lauren Barber/Triad City Beat)

The Greensboro City Council has offered an apology for the city's role in the deadly Klan-Nazi shootings that took place in the late 1970s. The unexpected council vote came on the heels of Saturday's violent confrontation in Charlottesville, VA, when a woman counter-protesting at a white supremacist rally was killed.

In 1979, five anti-Klan marchers were killed and 10 others wounded during a Klan/Nazi march in Greensboro. While all criminal defendants were acquitted in state and federal trials, a civil jury found the city and some Klansman liable for one of those deaths.

The News and Record of Greensboro reports Councilwoman Sharon Hightower introduced a measure this week apologizing for the city's role in the shootings. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission report released in 2006 found that local police and anti-Klan marchers bore some responsibility for the deaths.

The City Council has previously issued a statement of regret, but until this week has stopped short of apologizing.

The measure passed on a vote of 7-1, with council members saying they hope to issue a more formal apology in the future.

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

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