Greensboro Film continued

The Southern city of Greensboro provides a picturesque backdrop for this tale of lies and deceit and truth and reconciliation. Greensboro, which originally began as a film about Truth Commissions, is the first film, initiated by Zucker, an independent filmmaker and editor who also raised the funds for the project. “As I began to look into the story and met and talked to some of the people,” he said, “I became more interested in the characters and in the concept that these people had gone through this incredible thing a quarter of a century ago and had changed and evolved a great deal. It really became a character-driven thing about how people change or don’t change over time.”

Redemption and change are the overwhelming themes of Greensboro. Virgil Griffin, who was and still is, the Imperial Wizard of the Klan, provided colorful commentary. Jim Melvin, mayor of Greensboro from, 1971-1981, is also less than anxious for the city’s dirty laundry to be aired. But Roland Wayne Wood, former local leader of the Nazi Party, expressed sorrow that people were hurt and asked forgiveness for being “a bigot and a racist.” Pro-labor activist turned Baptist preacher, Nelson Johnson is also a different person. In 1979, Johnson was a key militant and outspoken organizer of the rally supporting labor and denouncing the Klan. Greensboro finds him older, slower, and wiser. Now a grandfather and pastor of Faith Community Church, Johnson reflected on the mistakes and missteps leading up to the massacre. He apologized for some name-calling and lamented on how the rally could have been more appropriately named “Death to Racism” rather than “Death to the Klan.”

Though the City of Greensboro did not embrace the commission’s final report, Greensboro the film is taking this message of hope and healing much further than city limits. The actual video footage of the 1979 shootings is graphic and hard to watch, but the sheer splendor of human transformation in this film, far outweighs the tragic events. END