I need your help. For 60 seconds.

March 29, 2009 in Uncategorized

In November, 1979, I was living in Greensboro, North Carolina, when the Greensboro Massacre took place. Members of the KKK opened fire and killed five civilians on the streets of Greensboro. As readers of Life is a Verb know, I was dating a black man in Greensboro at the time–it was a difficult time for us, a very difficult time, a time full of spit (literally) and venom and hatred and violence toward us.

Thirty years later, we have elected a multiracial, multicultural president. Newscasters are announcing that we are now in a post-racial America.

"Really?" I ask myself. "Really?"

I don't think so. I believe we've made great progress, yes. And I also believe that the Greensboro Massacre could happen again today. Much hate has been fomented in the past few years; the number of hate groups in the U.S. has grown by 56% since the year 2000. If you live in the U.S., find your state on this map to see how many hate groups there are in the U.S. now.

I've long wanted to do something to commemorate and explore the 30th anniversary of The Greensboro Massacre, especially given my personal connection to it. And this fall, I will. My business and creative partner, David Robinson, and I will launch a community project with art at its center playing the role that art ought to play in a community, helping people have conversations they couldn't otherwise have, providing a community with a center around which to talk.

A friend and colleague, Lora Abernathy, has a unique opportunity to receive seed money to help us with an important portion of that Greensboro Project that will involve providing photography equipment to students so they can document race in their community–as they live it daily. Is race still an issue in the South? Yes. Is it more subtle and therefore more insidious? Yes. We want to explore it from the inside out, giving them the voice and the eye to tell us, not the other way around.

Here's an excerpt from Lora's proposal:

The project I am speaking of is already in the planning and funding stages and will take place in Asheville, North Carolina, during the fall of this year. The timing commemorates the 30th anniversary of the Greensboro massacre. Colleagues of mine who are both artists and great facilitators of change have been in dialogue with the city of Asheville for the last 2 years. They have the buy-in of the police department, the City Manager, churches, schools, leadership and other organizations as well as the University of North Carolina. A production of the play, Greensboro: A Requiem, will be the anchor and centerpiece for several community-wide art projects, events and exhibits. All of these will be accompanied by trainings and seminars on how to have generative “hot conversations.”

I need your help, dear friends. Please support Lora's project simply by going here and voting (there is a brief registration process that will take less than a minute). Then please ask everyone you can in your networks to do the same by Thursday, April 2nd.

Many thanks for your help in bringing art to the center of this important conversation about race. It is a conversation we must continue.

About Patti Digh

Patti Digh is an author, speaker, and educator who builds learning communities and gets to the heart of difficult topics. Her work over the last three decades has focused on diversity, inclusion, social justice, and living and working mindfully. She has developed diversity strategies and educational programming for major nonprofit and corporate organizations and has been a featured speaker at many national and international conferences.

4 comments to " I need your help. For 60 seconds. "


Amy

March 30, 2009 AT 8:04AM

Done!

Jean

March 30, 2009 AT 10:55AM

Done, too. Thanks for giving us ways to help you back.

Suzanne Deal-Fitzgerald

March 30, 2009 AT 8:54PM

I have done this also…with this entry on their page:

“I hope, I hope, I hope, that while you’re working on this project, you thoroughly investigate the origins of the “Communist Party Workers” who came to town, and recruited well meaning members of our community into their fold.

“They made sure the Klan showed up that day, it was the only way they could bring attention to their “cause” which was not so much Communism but fame for themselves, and they put good people in the line of fire.

“BTW, I am a dues paying member of the Southern Poverty Law Center. I graduated from Dudley, in 1975. I watched the newscast in horror, from a Decatur GA bowling alley, and I knew why that sh*t happened that day, and by God, those people were slaughtered.”

I had moved from McLeansville to Atlanta in 1976, to go to the Atlanta College of Art, and also to work on the Carter Campaign. My father was a sculptor, and rather radical thinking Democrat, so, I grew up like that. !-)

While I was in High School, I had a fairly regular little column in the “Greensboro Sun,” edited by dear Jim Clark, who’s now at UNCG editing the Greensboro Review. These people were becoming movers and shakers themselves, and I was proud to stay up late with them, and hear their ideas.

The folks that had come into the community calling themselves “Communist Party Workers,” did Communism a disservice. They were looking for a fight, not necessary conversion to their Party. As their activity escalated, they were able to draw very intelligent members of the community into their fold. They were also elbowing the Klan, making sure the KKK was aware of the activities, and in the end inciting a tragedy.

As I said in my comment, I went to James B. Dudley, I graduated in ’75, I loved that school. How dare the Klan make themselves at home on that little street. Hey, but they were invited too! And they came to the party in arms! Those upstanding members of the community were easy targets. No one came out looking good. I think the only ones who felt they “won”, were the Klan members and their followers.

I’ve said too much. But, I was very aware of what was going on. My father was Ogden Deal, the sculptor who became a County Commissioner, and he was in office when the Klan trial closed down the Courthouse.

Elisabeth

April 2, 2009 AT 6:44PM

just under the wire – keep us posted!