November 19, 2024 • 61 mins
What if one day of violence could change the course of history? Join us as Aaron Shutterly, a distinguished historian, unpacks the chilling events of the 1979 Greensboro Massacre, an event overshadowed in the annals of American history. We explore the courageous efforts of activists striving to bridge racial divides among textile workers, only to face brutal opposition from Klansmen and neo-Nazis. Despite the shocking outcome of five deaths and no convictions, the struggles for justice echo loudly today, drawing unsettling parallels with incidents like the Charlottesville rally in 2017.
We delve into the power and peril of political rhetoric, examining J. Edgar Hoover's influence in casting civil rights advocates as communists. Aaron Chudley, another esteemed guest and author, shares his gripping journey of uncovering Greensboro's hidden history, including the FBI’s controversial involvement. The narrative takes a hard look at how labels have been weaponized across eras, questioning whether racial tensions have intensified or merely become more visible in this digital age. Through these conversations, we reflect on the Communist Workers Party's focus on class and poverty, urging us to consider broader societal issues beyond racial lines.
Listen as we weave through personal anecdotes, historical insights, and the haunting realities of injustice, both past and present. Aaron Chudley’s painstaking research highlights the FBI's complex role during this era and the resistance faced when presenting these truths. From the visual impact of recorded history to the role of informants in extremist movements, we seek to understand how these dynamics shape public narratives and collective memory. Ultimately, this episode illuminates the enduring need for truth, compassion, and a deeper understanding of our shared history.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to US Phenomenon, where possibilities
are endless.
Put down those same oldheadlines.
It's time to expand your mindand question what if?
From paranormal activity toUFOs, bigfoot sightings and
unsolved mysteries, this is USPhenomenon?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
From the Pacific Northwest in the shadow of the
1962 World's Fair, the SpaceNeedle.
This is US Phenomenon.
I'm your host, mario Magana,where we explore the
extraordinary and theunexplained.
In this episode, we arestepping into the time machine
to go back to 1979 to talk aboutthe Greensboro Massacre with
(00:45):
our guest tonight, aaronShutterly, who is a writer,
editor and narrative historianknown for his deep dive into
historical events and culturalphenomenons.
He is an author of thecritically acclaimed book like
the Americano Fight with castrofor cubans freedom for cuba's
(01:06):
freedom, and his latest workmorningside, the 1979 greensboro
massacre the struggle for anamerican city.
Soul shutterly is rich and hasa huge background in media and,
having founded and edited InsideMexico, the most widely
(01:31):
distributed English languageperiodical in Mexico, it is my
pleasure to welcome to USPhenomenon, aaron Shutterly.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Great to be with you, Mario.
Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
You know it's interesting with everything
that's been going on in politicsand I thought this might be a
good time to talk about somehistory pieces and what got you
started on this whole piece andI know that not a lot of people
talk about this, but let's talkabout what got you started in
(02:02):
this whole.
What got you started talking oreven doing the research about
this event that went down in1979 in Greensboro?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Two things.
In 2015, I was in Greensboro,North Carolina, with my father,
who's a painter and he had ashow of paintings at the
International Civil RightsCenter and Museum.
Painter, and he had a show ofpaintings at the International
Civil Rights Center and Museum,and the woman who organized that
said there are two people youneed to meet.
And so we went to this littlecafe and I met Reverend Nelson
(02:35):
Johnson and his wife, JoyceJohnson.
There was just a picture ofNelson Johnson there, in fact,
and he has been an activist inNorth Carolina.
There's Nelson Johnson beingarrested by the police on
November 3rd 1979.
In Greensboro since the mid-60sand he told us the story of this
(02:55):
November 3rd 1979 event and Icouldn't believe I'd never heard
of it.
I thought, wow, how is itpossible that something this
significant has completelyescaped my attention?
I want to know more about it.
And then I went away.
I was actually still living inMexico at that time.
We moved back to the UnitedStates and in 2017, where we
(03:18):
moved was Charlottesville,Virginia, and if you remember
the August 11th and 12th Unitethe Right rally, that happened
in Charlottesville Virginia avery similar clash, where a
woman who was counter protestingagainst a right wing
demonstration there was killed.
And all of a sudden Iremembered what I heard about in
(03:39):
Greensboro and I thought, wow,I think a way to understand what
has just happened inCharlottesville would be to go
back and understand better whathappened in Greensboro.
And I thought, wow, I think away to understand what has just
happened in Charlottesvillewould be to go back and
understand better what happenedin Greensboro.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
For most of the younger kids, who are probably
not great at history, you wouldthink that this may have gone to
lost in time and I can'tbelieve that.
Even thinking that for thistype of situation to go down,
people to be arrested, can you?
(04:11):
For those who have zeroinclinations of the event at all
, don't know they, they're justwalking into this show, this
radio pod, you know, maybethey're listening via podcast.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
If you're listening on a terrestrial radio station,
let's give the Cliff Notesversion of this story to the
average listener.
So here's the story.
It's the late 1970s.
It's a time not dissimilar fromour current moment, where
(04:44):
there's a lot of uneasiness andinsecurity.
There's high inflation, peopleare feeling economically
insecure, they are feelingpolitically uncertain.
And in Greensboro, northCarolina, there's a group of
(05:05):
organizers and activists who aretrying to build multiracial
unions in the textile millsthere, which are still some of
the biggest textile mills in thewhole world, and they're having
trouble organizing across race.
And so they decide to have amarch to explain how black and
white workers need to worktogether in order to make better
(05:28):
demands of management.
And they're going to have amarch march through Greensboro
and then have a conference atthe end of that march to sort of
have a deeper discussion.
They expect this might be thelargest labor march in North
Carolina since the 1930s.
There might be that many peoplethere.
And as they're setting up inthe morning a caravan of
(05:52):
Klansmen and neo-Nazis suddenlydrives up to the site of the
point where the march is goingto start from, pick a fight,
start shooting and in 88 secondsfive of these organizers are
left dead.
Another 10 are injured.
Now that's just the beginningof the story.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
What's wild to me is when you say this someone who's
listening if you're listeningright now this happened in 1979,
not the 60s or the 50s 1979.
For those who are listeningthis evening and we're like wait
, when, when was this?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
this was just like 45 years ago exactly 45 years ago
and even more mario to thatpoint.
All that there were threetrials after this.
All happened in the 80s and noone was ever held criminally
responsible for those murders.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
That's wild to me to think that life was extinguished
, and I go back to think thateveryone, regardless on what
side of the aisle you might beand I know some of this is very
extreme but there's a lane foreverybody, and I know that I
don't like to take rights awayfrom anybody and I just, in
(07:06):
these types of situations, evenlike right now, within, within
the whole the, the gaza strip,and you know, the palestinians
and the, the israelis fightingover some land, over which you
know I mean, is very complicatedto talk about.
Um, look it, people don't needto die over religion.
People don't need to die overbeliefs.
(07:27):
People need to.
It blows my mind when you thinkabout these types of things.
So I'll get off my soapbox, but, yes, go ahead, continue no,
it's really interesting.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
I mean, one of the things that of course played
into this, played a huge role inwhat the outcome of this was,
was that this was the middle ofthe depth of the Cold War, I
mean.
And so communists were the enemy, and this group of organizers
in Greensboro were part of alarger organization that had
(08:02):
organizing groups in differentcities around the country, and
they had called themselves theWorkers' Viewpoint Organization
until two weeks before thisevent, and they changed their
name to the Communist Workers'Party.
Now, this was a group.
They didn't have any foreignconnections, they weren't tools
of the Soviet Union or China,but they were a homegrown group
(08:23):
that believed that in order toreally change the structures in
this country, to be more fair topoor and marginalized people,
for deeper equality, if you will, they needed to have some sort
of revolution, and thatrevolution wasn't happening on
November 3rd 1979.
That was a March, and thatrevolution was at some undefined
(08:44):
point in the future and itwould take a lot of organizing
to get there.
But you know they were radicaland also, you know, pushing the
limits of what Americans couldtolerate in the Cold War
ideologically.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
And this during the time, in an economic time, and I
, you know, excuse my ignorance.
This was at the end of Carter'sadministration, right?
Was that the election year?
It was?
Speaker 3 (09:14):
right before the election year, but that plays
into it.
One of the reasons we've neverheard about this is the very
next day that the hostages weretaken in the American embassy in
Tehran, Iran.
So this is when the Ayatollahcame into power, kicked out the
Shah of Iran, and when theUnited States wouldn't return
(09:37):
the Shah for justice in Iran,they took hostages in the US
embassy.
That had triggered what hadhappened in Iran, had triggered
another oil crisis, and so therewere gas lines, there were
inflation they were calling itstagflation and price spurts,
(09:58):
and inflation was 17% way higherthan what we dealt with in this
moment.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
And this was also the time when they were doing the
the gap, like you would have toif you're registered.
It was like I don't.
I don't recall, but I know thatduring the gas times which I
think those everyone had a beastof a vehicle back in the day.
If you were to get gas, it wason X on.
On certain days you wereallowed to get gas.
I mean to think and to fathomthat now, in 20, 2024, I mean, I
(10:26):
mean you're talking like thisplace could be crazy times.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
You know, not only that, the governor of north
carolina asked people in northcarolina not to drive above 55
miles an hour.
They had to get gas, you know,on odd number or even number
days, sure?
And uh, he asked them to keeptheir thermostats at home, uh,
at 65 or below wow, I mean Ican't even imagine keeping my
(10:54):
place at 65 below.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
I mean I like it comfortable even in the studio.
It's nice in here, but I'm likestill it's like to think that
what happened and what they weredoing to conserve, and it just
is interesting in the movementthat you think about on how that
was such a radical thing goingon during that time, about
(11:21):
something that clearly the Klanwas not happy with and said,
look, we're coming at.
I mean it's brutality.
I mean this blows my mind onwhat actually transpired on that
day.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
There had been.
A few months earlier, the Klanwas having a recruiting session
in a town about 70 miles fromGreensboro in which they were
going to show this movie calledBirth to the Nation, which was
made in 1915 and is this famouscinematic achievement but also
(12:02):
very racist, and the blackcommunity in that town didn't
know what to do.
They wanted to prevent it butthey weren't sure how, and
Nelson Johnson and some of theother Communist Workers Party
members came down there andorganized a march in which they
marched right up to thecommunity center in that town
(12:25):
where the Klan was and had thisface-off with the Klan.
There were police there andthat's the only reason probably
there wasn't terrible violencethat day, because the Klansmen
and Nazis there were armed withall sorts of weapons and the
Communist Workers' Party folksthought this was a victory that
(12:47):
they had forced the Klan backinside.
They disrupted their event andthe Klan said at that moment
we'll get revenge.
But it's more complicated thanthat, mario, because there was a
police informant involved inthis who, when asked if he could
(13:11):
find out what the Klan wasgoing to do in response to the
November 3rd march, he went downand told a room full of 80
Klansmen that it was theirpatriotic duty to come to
Greensboro and confront thecommunists.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
It's interesting when you think about all this and
looking at the video.
If you haven't had a chance togo to my website or to watch the
stream, you can do so by goingto onairmariocom to watch all
the visuals.
Make sure you're a subscriberto the podcast.
Go to your favorite podcastingplatform and just search us
phenomenon with mario magana,our guest this evening.
(13:52):
Aaron shutterly wrote a bookabout the massacre from 1979.
Let's go back in time to whenyou first started to do your
research on this situation.
Was this something that youwere?
When you look back now, wereyou like, oh yeah, this is
something that it intrigued you.
What was the biggest piece toyou that that just spoke to your
(14:18):
heart when you're like, wow,this is, I need more people need
to know about this, and whatmade you want to write a book
about it.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
A couple things.
One is, you know, I was sort ofgrew up in the 70s, and I
wanted to know more about thistime that I'd grown up with.
You know, I'd grown up in ruralMaine.
I wasn't anywhere close toGreensboro or events like this
Right, and I thought, wow, youknow there was a lot going on
when I was a kid that I had noidea about.
(14:48):
So that was part of it.
The other part of it, though,was when I started to sort of
poke around in Greensboro was tosee how powerful the narratives
around this event still were,the degree to which it still
divided that city, and you knowI was on the phone with a former
mayor of Greensboro who startedyelling at me that this was a
(15:11):
waste of time and I shouldn't belooking into this.
You know why was I doing it?
And I had other similarencounters like that, you know,
and as a journalist andhistorian, when someone's that
angry about me looking atsomething, it makes me want to
look at it more.
Of course, I also had been soimpressed with the humanity of
(15:37):
Nelson Johnson and his wifeJoyce the humanity of Nelson
Johnson and his wife Joyce thatI thought these seem to be
pretty special people.
I want to understand how it isthat they could have become
communists, how it is that theysurvived the trauma of an event
like this where they lost fiveof their close friends, and how
they had worked to try toactually bring some reckoning
(16:02):
for this and reconciliationaround this in Greensboro.
So you know there are a wholebunch of questions that I came
to this with.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
And when we talk about Communist Party or the
communist movement, I mean mostpeople think of like like you
said earlier, most people thinkof like the former Soviet Union.
I mean they think of that andthe word is in most of those who
grew up 70s, 60s, 70s, the GenXers, the baby boomers really
(16:33):
know that word to be a very evilword.
I mean the 60s as well, I meanthe 60s as well.
I know that when you talk aboutthe Fidel Castro movement, you
talk about, you know, theassassination attempt on, or the
attempt on the assassinationWith Against Kennedy and them
taking Oswald and him being apart of this movement, or you
(16:57):
know how he had his ownSituation going on.
That word just seems to be suchan evil word In American
history, this movement.
Or you know how he had his ownsituation going on.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
That word just seems to be such an evil word in
American history Totally, andthat's one of the reasons I
wanted to take this on was tosort of explore the humanity
behind that word and see what itreally meant in this case.
And you know, and the otherthing is, what's interesting to
me is, you know, j Edgar Hoover?
Let's just talk about J EdgarHoover for a minute.
(17:25):
You know, led the FBI for 48years and he did so much to make
that us have that visceralfeeling to that word communism,
right.
I mean that was part of hisproject was to make us terrified
of what that word meant, andthe thing is is that he was
(17:46):
calling people communists whoweren't communists because they
advocated for equal rights forblack people, and so the word
gets used in our politicalsociety and our culture in so
many different ways, and so Ithought, you know, I want to
know who these people really areand what they really stand for,
(18:06):
because so often we get to thatword and we just stop, as you
say, you know, and it's like awall.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
It really is.
I mean, you're right, becausewhen you start to talk about
some of the stuff, when you goback in history and you listen
to J Edgar Hoover talk, I dorecall him in a lot of things.
A lot of political thingsduring that time were used, just
as you referenced, and it blowsmy mind to think that they
(18:35):
would use that word to beextreme.
You know, now communists wouldbe liberal.
I believe they may use thatword, you know, like tie that
into that piece where instead ofusing liberal back then they
use communist, as as I.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
that's how I, I look at it, how I well, it was
interesting to see in thispresidential campaign that just
happened.
Uh, trump calling kamala harriscomrade kamala, as you were
right and using that and Ithought is that landing?
I mean, is that having anyimpact right now?
(19:12):
I mean, are we still scared ofthat?
And you know, it occurred to meas I was thinking about it that
he may have been making sort ofa sly reference to race as much
as to politics in regards tocalling Kamala Comrade Kamala,
(19:44):
do you feel like this country ismore racist now than it ever
has been?
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Or do you feel like the country was in the closet
racist and then, after the 2016election, everyone just showed
up to play?
You know?
Speaker 3 (19:59):
You know, I think there are a lot of things going
on.
Race is part of it, and so I'lladdress your question directly,
but I think there are otherpieces to this, and one of the
things that intrigued me aboutthe Communist Workers Party is
they weren't focused only onrace, they were focused on class
(20:22):
and they were focused on, youknow, rights for poor people of
all colors white, black, youknow, uh, brown, you know
whatever and and so I think thatI just want to be careful of
over determining, sure, race,you know what I mean, and saying
that's the root of everything,when I don't necessarily think
(20:44):
it always is the root ofeverything, but to your point, I
think.
I mean, there's no question,there is a racist history, there
are racist institutions, andwhat happens to me, and one of
the things that I noticed doingthis book, is when leaders call
it out and empower it, itbecomes worse, and when leaders
(21:07):
don't do that, you know we canact a little better, but it's
been empowered right now, youknow, it's been whistled to the
foreground as opposed to kept inthe background.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
It's interesting when you're talking about having the
conversations and starting toput the book together.
Uh, in regards to resistance,uh, you, being a caucasian male,
is it that people were afraidof what we would some would call
revisionist history?
Because it's not you, I don'tknow that you're, you're not
(21:40):
rewriting history.
Clearly, I think that you aredocumenting, or you're taking
from what transcribed whatactually happened in narrating
in a book, without a bias of anyflavor.
From my understanding that youwere just trying to strictly
stick to the facts and you weregetting some resistance.
(22:03):
Because, let's be honest, it's,it's not pretty in american
history that that those types ofthings aren't that's ugly.
I mean, you know we're the homeof the free and the brave and
you know I it.
Just it does it.
To me it seems like you weregetting some resistance well, I
(22:23):
got some resistance, for sure.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
I think it's uh, you know, you have the clan on one
hand right with their idea of a,a, a white ethno state
essentially right and sure wecan talk about that.
You have some people who wantedto upset the whole system in
(22:46):
the order, the american systemand establishment, in order to
create something new.
But then you have sort of thegreensboro uh business and uh
political class.
They want a place that isstable, good for business, it's
a company town, right, and sostirring that pot doesn't serve
(23:10):
the interests, to their mind, ofcreating an image of a
progressive southern state whereeveryone gets along, or
progressive southern city whereeveryone gets along.
That is southern city whereeveryone gets along.
That is a place you shouldbring your Fortune 500 company
to.
And so I think some of theresistance, you know, comes from
telling stories that areuncomfortable and making people
(23:32):
think, huh, that happened there.
Well, you know.
But yeah, I mean, this projecttook me seven years, mario,
because there were hundreds ofthousands of pages of documents,
there were three trials, it wasone of the three largest FBI
investigations at the time inAmerican history, and so the
(23:53):
amount of material to sort ofstudy and try to process was
overwhelming and I have over athousand footnotes in this book
because I tried to play itstraight down the line in that
sense.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Our guest tonight, aaron Chudley, who has a book
available.
You can find it on his website,which we have linked in the
podcast.
If you're not a podcastsubscriber, if you're not a
podcast subscriber, if you'relistening and driving, uh, don't
write this down, but you goback and subscribe to the
podcast or uh, go to aaronshutterlycom to purchase this
(24:29):
book.
Uh, and you have multiple booksout there.
Obviously, we talked about that.
When you're going through thesedocuments in a seven year in
the making project, do you feel,did you find something in there
, a nugget, that you would say,wow, I had no clue that this was
a good or bad or indifferent,something that you learned other
(24:49):
than what you kind of had anoverview of.
But what was something in yourresearch during your, you know,
these seven years?
What was something that youtook away that you were like,
damn, I didn't know about that.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Yeah, there were a lot of things.
So first of all I want to sayjust sort of how I tried to tell
this story was more like anovel.
It's through characters andthere were some wonderful
characters to mine, in additionto the Johnsons who I've
mentioned.
You know, the informantKlansman, eddie Dawson, is a
(25:22):
fascinating character to me.
The FBI agent who led theGreensboro investigation, a man
named Cecil Moses, spent hoursand hours talking with me about
his worldview and what heremembered and how it came to
pass.
So I really tried to leave nostone unturned.
But here's something, a couplethings.
(25:44):
One is a lot of people haveheard of what happened at Kent
State in 1970, when someNational Guardsmen shot and
killed four Vietnam Warprotesters and killed four
Vietnam War protesters, and thiswas, you know, an American
(26:06):
tragedy.
What people don't know is thatthe year before, in 1969, on the
campus of North Carolina StateA&T North Carolina A&T the
African-American, thehistorically black university in
Greensboro, the AfricanAmerican, the historically black
university in Greensboro aconfrontation led to the largest
(26:27):
military action on an Americancampus in our history 650
National Guardsmen, helicoptersdropping tear gas, arresting
hundreds of students.
I mean, it's this remarkablething and you know what I came
(26:48):
to understand is I couldn'tunderstand what happened in 1979
without understanding what hadhappened in 1969, and how, in a
sense, the sides in Greensborohad been defined at that time,
including with Nelson Johnson,who was part of that history in
1969.
So that was one thing that blewmy mind.
I didn't know about this huge,you know, uprising.
Another thing, though, was Ilearned a lot about FBI history
(27:13):
that people haven't looked at,and this is sort of and this is
sort of J Edgar Hoover dies in1972.
Watergate happens, the scandalsaround Nixon right after that,
in which the FBI is sort ofimplicated in helping Nixon and
(27:33):
also helps push Nixon out ofoffice.
And then there's somethingcalled the Church Committee, led
by Senator Frank Church fromIdaho, which goes into illegal
activities in the FBI and CIA.
This is why we know about, forexample, the assassination
attempts on Castro by the CIA isbecause of the Church Committee
and the FBI, which had been,you know, the most trusted
(27:57):
institution in America underHoover, all of a sudden people
don't trust it, the morale islow, agents are leaving and
they're trying to regain theirfooting, and what I ended up
learning was what happened inGreensboro had a lot to do with
what the FBI wanted to do, whichwas regain its footing, regain
(28:18):
its authority as a lawenforcement institution, and
they were using what happened ingreensboro to do that, and they
ultimately succeeded inre-establishing themselves.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
I'm trying to remember if, uh, if was, was
herbert walker bush?
Was Herbert Walker Bush thedirector of the FBI then?
Speaker 3 (28:43):
or was it later?
No, it was a guy named well,William Webster Okay, Judge
Webster was in 1979, and rightbefore that had been a man named
Clarence Kelly, and he hadreally done the yeoman work of
sort of beginning to recalibratethe FBI for the post-Hoover era
.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
It's interesting because when you think of Hoover
and we don't the topic doesn'tcome up here on the radio show
very often, but I'm very muchreminded with the name J Edgar
Hoover.
You may not be, and I'll putthis out there for everyone who
may or may not know, but therewas an incident here in
Washington back in the 40s.
(29:25):
It was called the Murray Islandincident and in that incident
there was supposedly allegedlythese men in black that came out
.
But J Edgar Hoover was the onethat sent the guys out to go
investigate what was going on atthe Murray Island incident,
which was who knows if it wasUFOs or what was actually what
(29:45):
took place.
But it's always interesting tohear the name J Edgar Hoover and
it always makes me, it alwaystakes me back to something that
I've done my research on inregards to an incident that
happened close in here, which isjust I'm in West Seattle, so
just west of me, a little bitover by uh vashon island, uh,
obviously the home of uh mountrainier and the uh kenneth
(30:11):
arnold, uh ufo sighting.
So when people say roswell, Ialways like to put this out
there.
Remember washington, ithappened here first.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
So we are home yeah, we're.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
I always.
I always felt like we are.
We're the home for the mostparanormal ufo sightings, but
obviously the incident may,something may have crashed over
there.
Kenneth arnold saw the thestuff here in 47, prior to the,
the stuff in roswell, I think,later on in june, june or July
or whatever that may be.
But getting back to your storyon a tangent, so my apologies
(30:45):
there, but what's interesting tome when you think about the 60s
, 69, a revolution of this wasthe time when we're talking.
I mean the separation ofCaucasian kids, you know,
colored kids going to differentschools, the water situation
(31:07):
blacks had African Americans hadtheir own bathrooms, you know
it, just things that we don'tfathom to this day.
The equality of life, it just,I mean it wasn't that long ago
that these types of things weregoing on.
It really, and it's startlingto think that, you know, I
(31:33):
couldn't sit down to have dinnerwith somebody and that may have
been some other descent otherthan you know, caucasian, being
someone who's, you know, italian, hispanic, mexican, american, a
melting pot of you know,different ethnicities, I mean it
(31:53):
just blows my mind to thinkthat, yes, there were
segregation going on, and I knowfor a lot of people that live
in the pacific northwest.
I know you're talking aboutliving up in, up in your neck of
the woods in maine.
Is that right when we said yougrew up?
Speaker 3 (32:07):
I grew up in maine.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Yeah, how the the shelter of the.
I don't know that there was alot of that going on here back
in those days, at least fromwhat I've heard from others who
grew up during that time.
They said there wasn't a lot ofthat segregation going on here.
So I don't know if you saw thatwhen you were growing up
segregation Well, not really.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
I mean, it was, the closest thing we had was, you
know, Native Americanreservations, not too far from
where I lived.
We didn't have a lot of blackpeople living in rural Maine for
sure.
But my parents my mother wasfrom New York and my father was
(32:52):
from Cincinnati and they'd goneback to the land in Maine and so
I grew up on a little homestead, you know, with no electricity
and an outhouse and a biggardens and a root cellar, so
yeah, and so they hadparticipated in civil rights
activity and brought thosestories and that history into
(33:13):
the home, and that's how I beganto learn about it.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
And that's interesting that, that's cool
that your parents brought thathistory back to share with you
to continue the evolution ofwhat they thought was the path,
the correct path obviously,equality for everyone.
Um, do you feel like in thisbook that you, this book that
(33:42):
you've done here, are therepieces that remind you of modern
times right now?
Speaker 3 (33:54):
yeah, I mean so.
For example, you were justshowing video of that shooting
on november 3rd 1979.
Pretty amazing, right thatthere were four, four camera
crews set up that day to coverit.
And so we have this incrediblydetailed visual record of what
(34:19):
happened.
And still, no one was everacquitted.
But that, in a sense, thatvisual piece, is part of what
drew me to the story, becausetoday we have cell phones, we
have cameras everywhere.
Everything seems to be capturedon film.
That was much rarer then.
And to see how it then traveledthrough our judicial system,
right.
(34:39):
But you know who are you goingto believe me?
Or your lion eyes, right?
And so you can watch thishappen and then create a whole
different, alternative narrativearound what is in those
pictures and decide that whatyou see actually isn't the truth
.
And, and that's something thatyou know, we've been dealing
(35:00):
with recently in a number ofdifferent, it seems to me,
settings, but particularly, Imean as far as I'm concerned,
you know, january 6th 2021 wow,um, I mean yeah, 100.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
It's interesting because you think about I'm like
wait, people died that day.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
You know there's not like it.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
I always tell everyone I mean yeah, I do a
conspiracy radio show.
There's certain conspiracies wejust don't cover.
I don't cover 9-11, I don'treally cover the conspiracy of
you know, you know thecoronavirus.
There's no, you know thecoronavirus.
There's no you know people die.
These are people that are dying.
Now, you know I'm not an expertand you know people are like
(35:40):
well, you know blah, blah blah.
However, that plays out January6th, another one.
I don't subscribe to any typeof garbage in regards to
conspiracy, in regards to that,when people die at mass
quantities and even the loss oflife, I is, it's not, that's not
(36:02):
something you play with and toywith, and it's interesting
because you're you are correctin that regards to that january
6th, and that was four years ago.
That was four years ago.
Can you imagine if that was theopposite?
Uh, if those were all liberalsthat had stormed the capital
right yeah I.
(36:22):
I don't know that that is goingto be the case this year, but I
don't think so yeah, but I justdon't know that, that's in their
nature.
It just to me, the playbook inwhich took place on January 6th
and I always like to telleveryone that there was a
(36:44):
gentleman who wrote a bookcalled Behold the Pale Horse,
william Cooper, was very extreme.
And then when that whole groupthat came out, the QAnon group,
that had this huge movementsomeone who's read the book back
in 2000, that was such a longtime ago I was like whoa, wait a
(37:07):
second, this is all familiar.
What is going on and sureenough it was a lot of what was
going on was coming out of thebook behold the pale horse and
the q anon really made it liketheir bible and and and I was
like this is wild, this is wild.
And in in that, in that factthat you know, to think that
(37:30):
someone who had passed away, hepredicted his own death but he
had issues on his own, but forthem to take this conspiracy
book, that was really off kilter.
I mean people going to theserealms of concentration,
modern-day concentration camps,things of that nature, that's
(37:53):
how far off it was.
So to think about the January6th thing, I'll let you pick
back up, but yeah, you're right.
I mean people died that day.
I mean a lot of you know.
There was a loss of life andwho's being accountable?
Who's being held accountablefor that, for those actions?
Speaker 3 (38:13):
So yeah, being held accountable for that, for those
actions.
So yeah, mario, have you.
Did you ever come across a guynamed Harold Covington out there
?
He was a.
He had something called theNorthern Front, I think it was
called.
It was a sort of idea of anorganization that he lived in um
bremerton, washington, and wasuh, basically advocating a white
(38:37):
ethnostate.
What's interesting the reason Ibring him up is he was the head
of the american nazi party andwas from north carolina and it
was some of his men that showedup to uh the march and were
shooting that day and he thenwent out and reestablished
(38:59):
himself in the in the Northwest.
But I've always wondered, youknow, how he sort of escaped the
law to some degree for so long,you know, and I always wondered
if maybe he'd been some sort ofescaped the law to some degree
for so long, you know, and Ialways wondered if maybe he'd
been some sort of informant.
But I don't know Certainlyunclear, you know.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
It's interesting that you think about that.
Yeah, could he have been aplanted seed from the CIA, you
know?
And then him being sent to theNorthwest and especially
bremerton.
I mean there's not much goingon out there.
It's very rural, it's very, youknow it is a very now it's, you
(39:44):
know it's it's been modernizedbut it's still.
There's still a lot of, there'sa lot of twigs in between, you
know, cities and townships andthings of that nature.
I mean, I'm very familiar withBremerton, so putting him up in
the shelf up here in the PacificNorthwest, a good hiding spot
if he's a former informant ofthe CIA or FBI.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
Yeah, one of the things that you ask about,
things that surprised me.
You ask about things thatsurprise me.
Another one that surprised mewas the degree to which the FBI
had infiltrated the Klan.
In the late 60s and into the70s.
There were Klan claverns inNorth Carolina with eight
(40:28):
members and seven of them wereinformants.
So you had informants informingon informants and seven of them
were informants.
So you had informants informingon informants.
And so you know that was one ofthe things the church committee
in the mid-70s was reallylooking at was how informants
were used and whether they werebeing used to really prevent
violence or to exacerbateviolence in some cases.
(40:50):
And that was what they tried todo was to the, after that,
limit the way that informantswould be used and make it much
harder to sort of set up aninformant network.
And that's one of the thingsthat the FBI wanted loosen, so
that they could use informantsmore liberally again after that,
(41:12):
after Greensboro, and, and sowhat they would say was well,
more liberally again afterGreensboro.
And so what they would say waswell, if we'd had an informant,
we could have prevented theviolence in Greensboro in 1979.
And they were able to use thatto get those restrictions
loosened so they could useinformants again more like as
they had under Hoover.
(41:32):
But the problem with thatargument was that the police
informant had been an FBIinformant for a long time and it
actually told his FBI handlerseverything.
He told the Greensboro PoliceDepartment.
So they knew, but unofficially.
And so there were three lawenforcement outfits the Bureau
(41:54):
of Alcohol, tobacco and Firearms, the FBI and the Greensboro
Police Department.
That could have prevented theviolence that day and didn't.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Oh, man, you would think that protect and serve
regardless.
Protect and serve.
Our guest this evening, aaronChudderly, has a website
AaronChudderlycom.
His book available on hiswebsite Morningside the 1979
Greensboro Massacre and theStruggle for an American City
(42:27):
Soul.
Aaron, I got to ask you.
I don't't have to ask you, butI'm going to ask you.
In all the times that you sitand chat about this story and
all the stuff you've done thisone and all your other books do
you feel like this one took alot out of you in regards to
(42:49):
research, the like a little bitof the, you know, resistance?
Do you feel like this one tookit out, that this one was a big
project, like striving for?
You're like, wow, this, my babyfinally grew up and I'm like,
wow, I mean, that was a hard one, you know you had a hard one.
There's no question, mario it it, you know it's like your second
(43:13):
child, right, You're like themiddle one a little bit.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
Yeah, it was hard to sit with a lot of this stuff for
so long, and it's one of thereasons it took so long, because
I had to figure out what did Ireally believe and what did I
really think, especially whenthere's such passionate people
on different sides of thistelling me, you know, what they
believed and why it was right.
And so it took me a long timeto sort of sort through the
(43:37):
material and, you know, go overit and go over it again and make
sure that I was writingsomething that I felt was true
and not just parroting you knowsomeone's point of view.
But at the end of the day Ifeel like I accomplished that
and told this sort ofcomplicated, roiling tale of you
(43:59):
know our country and how hardit is and sometimes to escape
from our own history, escapefrom ourselves and our own
limitations.
But I'm encouraged by thepeople who keep trying, and you
know they're the ones that keptme going through this.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
But I'm encouraged by the people who keep trying and
you know they're the ones thatkept me going through this and
the different characters in thebook.
As you said, you wrote thecharacters, the members from the
clan.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
were you able to have conversations with them, or is
it more of a historical?
What's interesting is most ofthem are no longer alive.
You know, they lived hard.
They didn't live as long assome of the other people, sure.
But also, when I tried to getin touch with family members,
they really didn't want to talkabout it and so.
(44:54):
But there was so much legalmaterial, so much newspaper
article material, so many goodinterviews from that time, that
I still felt like I was able torepresent their point of view
and get into their heads prettywell from what was available to
me.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
And when you said these families didn't want to
chat, was it because they werelike they wanted to move past
that piece of history?
Like it was not, they weren'tproud of that piece, or was it
more like they were ashamed?
What were you getting from theresistance in regards to them
not wanting to talk?
Speaker 3 (45:30):
I sensed that they felt there was no benefit to
talking that it was hard,shameful.
You know what good could comeof dredging that up for them and
their families.
That was my sense.
Sure, I didn't get close enoughto be able to ask that question
and let them answer it, butyeah, that's what I felt.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
You would think, yeah , I mean being tied to a
someone's last name of someonewho may be a clan member or
something that may be shameful.
I shouldn't say a clan member,because maybe not all of them
are bad, but who knows?
Um, this is gotta be good ineverybody, I'm assuming.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
But um, let me, yeah, let me pick up on that for a
second, mario, because that wassomething I did not want to
create one-dimensionalcharacters in this book.
And they said you know, webelieve in the dignity of every
(46:33):
human being, you know, and thatevery human being has the
potential for good, and I reallytried to represent that with
every single character that Icould in this book, you know,
and make them fully human, likeI wasn't interested in just, you
(46:56):
know, setting up, you know,easy bad guys and good guys and
um, so, you know, I thinkthere's there's a lot of nuance
in this book that people will,um, I leave it up to the reader
to figure out often, uh, howthey feel about the different
characters man in, I think, 46years of my life.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
I mean, it was something that came across and I
was like, wait, how is this not?
How am I not informed?
And I felt like a completeidiot.
Someone who loves history, goodand bad and different, I'd love
to learn about the country, themodern day, of what was going
(47:32):
on, the growth of the country,where we were at during these
times, uh, so we don't go back.
I think that in a, in a youngersociety, you know, I I know
there is a really young group ofindividuals who are growing up
right now, who are coming intotheir own voting rights,
wisewise things of that nature.
(47:54):
But we have to remember,regardless if you're a
Republican or a Democrat orhowever you lean, whichever way
of the fence, it is mostimportant that we understand the
American history, where we'vebeen and where we're going, so
that we can understand andcontinue to grow, evolve as a
country.
And, Aaron, I have to say Iappreciate you being able to
(48:18):
take a seven year long project,put it to paper, uh, and be able
to provide a little piece ofhistory.
That's probably not the sexiestpiece of history in american
history, but to be able to giveus almost kind of an overview,
(48:39):
like a 200 foot overview of whathappened, with giving us the
ability to learn some of thesecharacters and kind of like go
through that process with themduring your journey in this book
.
Um, what other projects are youworking on right now outside of
promoting the book and talkingabout this event that took place
(49:00):
in 1979?
Speaker 3 (49:02):
Well, really, the book just came out less than a
month ago so it's been a prettyfull-court press on that for now
and I've been traveling a lotand doing book events, which has
been really interesting.
I mean, I've met a lot ofinteresting people with
connections to this history.
And also, I would just say, youknow, part of the reason I
(49:26):
wrote the book, and about thisspecifically, wasn't only that
Greensboro is an important placein the country, which it is and
I think is often overlooked,but that everywhere in this
country has difficult historythat you know it could spend
some time thinking about andtrying to understand and more
deeply understand one's ownplace.
(49:48):
Because of it is what I thought, and there's a way in which
Greensboro provides a model forthat, because they ended up
going through a truth andreconciliation process in
Greensboro to try to understandwhat had happened in 1979.
And I think that that was acourageous thing to do instead
of just sweeping it under therug.
But to your point, you know I'mMario, I've lived in Cuba for
(50:12):
six months, I've lived in CostaRica, I've lived in Mexico for
almost 11 years.
Latin America is near and dearto me and so I'm planning to
write my next book and I hope itwill take much less time than
this one did.
Uh, about Mexico.
Speaker 2 (50:28):
And when you lived in Cuba cause I know a lot of us
have not been to Cuba Um, whatwas the best part?
What did you love about Cubathe most?
I mean, were you?
Was it still under Fidel atthat point when you were there,
fidel?
Speaker 3 (50:44):
was still alive when I was there.
Yep, okay and um.
But what I loved was the people.
They were just wonderful, somany wonderful people, and one
of the things you know throughall the hardship that they were
living through there they werein general quite well educated.
(51:06):
You could have an interestingconversation with just about any
Cuban anywhere in that country.
And that was pretty fascinatingNow.
I had some really interestingexperiences there.
So, for example, I was therewhen George W Bush was president
and said that one Fourth ofJuly and I happened to be there
(51:30):
then that any Cuban who couldjust get to the international
water line international line inthe ocean would be picked up by
Coast Guard and brought to theUnited States.
Now I was living in this nicelittle section of the city and
had a lot of neighbors who wereclaimed to be very
(51:50):
pro-revolution.
But when this happened, all ofa sudden they started asking me
in for coffee in the privacy oftheir homes, to ask me what I
thought about this and whetherthey should try to get to the
international water line, and itgave me a real insight into
what was going on there.
Speaker 2 (52:09):
It's interesting that you say that.
I mean, maybe one day we'llhave the opportunity to you know
, I know during the Obamaadministration there were a few
that you know took the libertiesto try to get to Cuba and
travel and whatnot.
It's interesting when you lookat the pictures and it is almost
(52:29):
like someone took a stopwatchand just stopped time in regards
to vehicles and things of thatnature.
I'm sure that's not still thecase these days, but interesting
that you said that I have to goback and look.
I don't recall, was there aninflux back then?
I don't recall that that makingheadline news.
Speaker 3 (52:48):
No, it didn't.
No, it didn't make any no, no,in fact, what happened was the
next day.
I was walking down it's calledthe Malecon, which is the famous
seawall Sure Along the edge ofHavana and I noticed that I was
the only one walking there.
Oh, and I noticed that I wasthe only one walking there.
It was very strange, becauseusually it's crowded and
(53:10):
bustling and there are peopleselling things and talking to
you and swimming and fishing.
And I suddenly noticed I wasall alone and I looked and there
was a cop every 30 feet andapparently there were cops all
along the coast trying toprevent people from going out
successfully.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
You're staying here.
You're not going anywhere.
Speaker 3 (53:32):
Yeah, they knew I wasn't going to suddenly jump in
a boat and head off back to theinternational waterline, so
they let me walk along there.
But there were no Cubans there.
Speaker 2 (53:41):
Oh, that's interesting times.
I was thinking about this as wewere having a conversation
about the cuba piece when youwere writing this book, and what
made me brought this to myattention was the television,
the tv stations that were therereporting.
I know that were you able tofind anybody from these stations
(54:03):
that were still alive to sharetheir insight?
Speaker 3 (54:08):
Yeah, I had a wonderful conversation with a
cameraman named Ed Boyd.
Speaker 2 (54:13):
Oh, cameraman, they're always good to, they
always give a good insight.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (54:16):
Uh, uh, he's an African American guy cameraman.
He'd been in the uh, I think itwas the air force and then had
had, uh, trained to be acameraman and just loved it.
I mean, this was he ended up inthe perfect spot, he had a go
bag and he loved just jumping inthe car and going to the next
shoot and filming.
And so he spent a long timetelling me his story and he
(54:43):
thought, you know he watchedthis, you know he at one point
dropped his camera because, youknow, he thought a gun was being
aimed at him.
And then he jumped in the carhe'd come in and kept filming
and what he described in hismind was he thought it was a
military operation, essentially,that the K and nazis had run
(55:07):
there, that they knew exactlywhat they were doing, they fired
a shot in the air to scare theactivists back toward, uh, the
real shooters, and that the realshooters had then, you know,
taken the guns out of the trunkof the car and picked off people
, um and um.
So it was a very interestingconversation to have with him
and what he saw in front of himas something that he thought
(55:31):
looked, uh, very well plannedinteresting.
Speaker 2 (55:36):
Interesting, I mean when you're, when you're sitting
there and you're looking atthings from a different eye and
most photographers are trying tolook for what could possibly be
the best shot, and someone whohas been in the media business,
I mean, if it leads, it leads.
But I'm not sure that he waslooking for that.
(55:57):
But that's an interesting takethat he you share with us here
this evening.
Uh, on the show.
I mean, was that?
Was that?
Do you think that was what thecase?
Was that it was?
Was it provoked by the clan?
Was it like what was the tipoff for most of like this whole?
Was it?
Was it like a warning shot thattriggered the entire thing to
(56:20):
go down for someone who's neverlistened to, never heard the
story before?
Was that the case where it wasa?
Speaker 3 (56:27):
yeah.
So what ed boyd picked up inhis camera, which is to me
extremely telling, although itdidn't play out in the courts
this way um, for various reasons, but um, what you can see, as
the caravan is driving up,there's a young man loading what
(56:50):
is a powder pistol, beforeanything has happened, and then
some sort of shouting and someyou know couple cars get kicked
a little bit.
But he then stands out of thepickup truck, he's in and shoots
this powder pistol into the air.
(57:11):
That creates this plume of darksmoke and that was the signal.
It seems perhaps to start afight.
Now the defense attorneys latersaid this was a friendly
warning shot to tell people tostand down, to not fight, to
scare them away so they wouldn'tfight.
(57:32):
That just doesn't seem toreally make sense when you're in
it.
Speaker 2 (57:38):
Sure, our guest this evening, aaron Chudderly, from
his website.
You can go and purchase hisbook at Aaron Chudderly dot com,
our guest this evening.
As we wrap things up close tothe top of the hour here from
the Pacific Northwest, aaron, Igot to say thank you for coming
(57:58):
to hang out with us.
Anything else that you want,let's, let's.
Let's wrap this up, put a bowon this.
So we're saying that thecountry right now we're better
off than we were, I kid, but inthis piece here, do you feel
that after seven years writingthis book, going through the
(58:19):
entire thing here, this piece ofhistory will go down as a
divide in the line where I?
I mean, I'm trying like is thislike the 69 type of situation?
Was this more of like?
Was this like the dissolving ofthe clan?
(58:42):
Was this more of like the, the,you know the, the evolution of
marches?
What did we learn here?
Speaker 3 (58:51):
I think, to be honest with you, mario, I think it is
a detonating moment for thealt-right and for white power, I
think, because no one was heldaccountable, that there was a
sense of impunity andempowerment and that people
thought, wow, you know, theculture really supports us to
(59:13):
some degree.
So I think, in that case, thisevent is truly significant.
I think it's also significantbecause it, you know,
essentially puts an end to theultra-left you know it's
terrifying the you know sort ofhomegrown communist movement is
ended by this to some degree,and I think it also leads to,
(59:41):
you know, a sort of moreempowerment, in a way
complicated empowerment, of lawenforcement.
That we need to keep thinkingabout, you know, is do we want
more transparency or lesstransparency?
And I think that that'ssomething that is an ongoing
conversation.
Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
Our guest tonight, aaron Chatterley, from his own
website, aaronchatterleycom.
We'll have all the linksprovided.
If you'd like to get a copy ofhis book, you can do so by going
to our website or going to thepodcast link.
Go to your favorite podcastingplatform and search US
Phenomenon with Mario Magana theMassacre, the Morningside.
(01:00:21):
His book is called theMorningside the 1979 Greensboro
Massacre massacre and thestruggle for an american city
soul.
Again our guest author, aaronshutterly, thank you so much for
hanging out with us thisevening as we wrap up things
from the pacific northwest.
I'd like to thank our guest,aaron shutterly for taking the
(01:00:41):
time this evening to chat withus.
Uh, for my entire crew, markchristopher, jeff jens and
sophia magana and myself, mariomagana, be sure to look up at
the sky, because you never knowwhat you might see.
Good night.
Welcome to US Phenomenon, where possibilities
are endless.
Put down those same oldheadlines.
It's time to expand your mindand question what if?
From paranormal activity toUFOs, bigfoot sightings and
unsolved mysteries, this is USPhenomenon?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
From the Pacific Northwest in the shadow of the
1962 World's Fair, the SpaceNeedle.
This is US Phenomenon.
I'm your host, mario Magana,where we explore the
extraordinary and theunexplained.
In this episode, we arestepping into the time machine
to go back to 1979 to talk aboutthe Greensboro Massacre with
(00:45):
our guest tonight, aaronShutterly, who is a writer,
editor and narrative historianknown for his deep dive into
historical events and culturalphenomenons.
He is an author of thecritically acclaimed book like
the Americano Fight with castrofor cubans freedom for cuba's
(01:06):
freedom, and his latest workmorningside, the 1979 greensboro
massacre the struggle for anamerican city.
Soul shutterly is rich and hasa huge background in media and,
having founded and edited InsideMexico, the most widely
(01:31):
distributed English languageperiodical in Mexico, it is my
pleasure to welcome to USPhenomenon, aaron Shutterly.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Great to be with you, Mario.
Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
You know it's interesting with everything
that's been going on in politicsand I thought this might be a
good time to talk about somehistory pieces and what got you
started on this whole piece andI know that not a lot of people
talk about this, but let's talkabout what got you started in
(02:02):
this whole.
What got you started talking oreven doing the research about
this event that went down in1979 in Greensboro?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Two things.
In 2015, I was in Greensboro,North Carolina, with my father,
who's a painter and he had ashow of paintings at the
International Civil RightsCenter and Museum.
Painter, and he had a show ofpaintings at the International
Civil Rights Center and Museum,and the woman who organized that
said there are two people youneed to meet.
And so we went to this littlecafe and I met Reverend Nelson
(02:35):
Johnson and his wife, JoyceJohnson.
There was just a picture ofNelson Johnson there, in fact,
and he has been an activist inNorth Carolina.
There's Nelson Johnson beingarrested by the police on
November 3rd 1979.
In Greensboro since the mid-60sand he told us the story of this
(02:55):
November 3rd 1979 event and Icouldn't believe I'd never heard
of it.
I thought, wow, how is itpossible that something this
significant has completelyescaped my attention?
I want to know more about it.
And then I went away.
I was actually still living inMexico at that time.
We moved back to the UnitedStates and in 2017, where we
(03:18):
moved was Charlottesville,Virginia, and if you remember
the August 11th and 12th Unitethe Right rally, that happened
in Charlottesville Virginia avery similar clash, where a
woman who was counter protestingagainst a right wing
demonstration there was killed.
And all of a sudden Iremembered what I heard about in
(03:39):
Greensboro and I thought, wow,I think a way to understand what
has just happened inCharlottesville would be to go
back and understand better whathappened in Greensboro.
And I thought, wow, I think away to understand what has just
happened in Charlottesvillewould be to go back and
understand better what happenedin Greensboro.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
For most of the younger kids, who are probably
not great at history, you wouldthink that this may have gone to
lost in time and I can'tbelieve that.
Even thinking that for thistype of situation to go down,
people to be arrested, can you?
(04:11):
For those who have zeroinclinations of the event at all
, don't know they, they're justwalking into this show, this
radio pod, you know, maybethey're listening via podcast.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
If you're listening on a terrestrial radio station,
let's give the Cliff Notesversion of this story to the
average listener.
So here's the story.
It's the late 1970s.
It's a time not dissimilar fromour current moment, where
(04:44):
there's a lot of uneasiness andinsecurity.
There's high inflation, peopleare feeling economically
insecure, they are feelingpolitically uncertain.
And in Greensboro, northCarolina, there's a group of
(05:05):
organizers and activists who aretrying to build multiracial
unions in the textile millsthere, which are still some of
the biggest textile mills in thewhole world, and they're having
trouble organizing across race.
And so they decide to have amarch to explain how black and
white workers need to worktogether in order to make better
(05:28):
demands of management.
And they're going to have amarch march through Greensboro
and then have a conference atthe end of that march to sort of
have a deeper discussion.
They expect this might be thelargest labor march in North
Carolina since the 1930s.
There might be that many peoplethere.
And as they're setting up inthe morning a caravan of
(05:52):
Klansmen and neo-Nazis suddenlydrives up to the site of the
point where the march is goingto start from, pick a fight,
start shooting and in 88 secondsfive of these organizers are
left dead.
Another 10 are injured.
Now that's just the beginningof the story.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
What's wild to me is when you say this someone who's
listening if you're listeningright now this happened in 1979,
not the 60s or the 50s 1979.
For those who are listeningthis evening and we're like wait
, when, when was this?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
this was just like 45 years ago exactly 45 years ago
and even more mario to thatpoint.
All that there were threetrials after this.
All happened in the 80s and noone was ever held criminally
responsible for those murders.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
That's wild to me to think that life was extinguished
, and I go back to think thateveryone, regardless on what
side of the aisle you might beand I know some of this is very
extreme but there's a lane foreverybody, and I know that I
don't like to take rights awayfrom anybody and I just, in
(07:06):
these types of situations, evenlike right now, within, within
the whole the, the gaza strip,and you know, the palestinians
and the, the israelis fightingover some land, over which you
know I mean, is very complicatedto talk about.
Um, look it, people don't needto die over religion.
People don't need to die overbeliefs.
(07:27):
People need to.
It blows my mind when you thinkabout these types of things.
So I'll get off my soapbox, but, yes, go ahead, continue no,
it's really interesting.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
I mean, one of the things that of course played
into this, played a huge role inwhat the outcome of this was,
was that this was the middle ofthe depth of the Cold War, I
mean.
And so communists were the enemy, and this group of organizers
in Greensboro were part of alarger organization that had
(08:02):
organizing groups in differentcities around the country, and
they had called themselves theWorkers' Viewpoint Organization
until two weeks before thisevent, and they changed their
name to the Communist Workers'Party.
Now, this was a group.
They didn't have any foreignconnections, they weren't tools
of the Soviet Union or China,but they were a homegrown group
(08:23):
that believed that in order toreally change the structures in
this country, to be more fair topoor and marginalized people,
for deeper equality, if you will, they needed to have some sort
of revolution, and thatrevolution wasn't happening on
November 3rd 1979.
That was a March, and thatrevolution was at some undefined
(08:44):
point in the future and itwould take a lot of organizing
to get there.
But you know they were radicaland also, you know, pushing the
limits of what Americans couldtolerate in the Cold War
ideologically.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
And this during the time, in an economic time, and I
, you know, excuse my ignorance.
This was at the end of Carter'sadministration, right?
Was that the election year?
It was?
Speaker 3 (09:14):
right before the election year, but that plays
into it.
One of the reasons we've neverheard about this is the very
next day that the hostages weretaken in the American embassy in
Tehran, Iran.
So this is when the Ayatollahcame into power, kicked out the
Shah of Iran, and when theUnited States wouldn't return
(09:37):
the Shah for justice in Iran,they took hostages in the US
embassy.
That had triggered what hadhappened in Iran, had triggered
another oil crisis, and so therewere gas lines, there were
inflation they were calling itstagflation and price spurts,
(09:58):
and inflation was 17% way higherthan what we dealt with in this
moment.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
And this was also the time when they were doing the
the gap, like you would have toif you're registered.
It was like I don't.
I don't recall, but I know thatduring the gas times which I
think those everyone had a beastof a vehicle back in the day.
If you were to get gas, it wason X on.
On certain days you wereallowed to get gas.
I mean to think and to fathomthat now, in 20, 2024, I mean, I
(10:26):
mean you're talking like thisplace could be crazy times.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
You know, not only that, the governor of north
carolina asked people in northcarolina not to drive above 55
miles an hour.
They had to get gas, you know,on odd number or even number
days, sure?
And uh, he asked them to keeptheir thermostats at home, uh,
at 65 or below wow, I mean Ican't even imagine keeping my
(10:54):
place at 65 below.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
I mean I like it comfortable even in the studio.
It's nice in here, but I'm likestill it's like to think that
what happened and what they weredoing to conserve, and it just
is interesting in the movementthat you think about on how that
was such a radical thing goingon during that time, about
(11:21):
something that clearly the Klanwas not happy with and said,
look, we're coming at.
I mean it's brutality.
I mean this blows my mind onwhat actually transpired on that
day.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
There had been.
A few months earlier, the Klanwas having a recruiting session
in a town about 70 miles fromGreensboro in which they were
going to show this movie calledBirth to the Nation, which was
made in 1915 and is this famouscinematic achievement but also
(12:02):
very racist, and the blackcommunity in that town didn't
know what to do.
They wanted to prevent it butthey weren't sure how, and
Nelson Johnson and some of theother Communist Workers Party
members came down there andorganized a march in which they
marched right up to thecommunity center in that town
(12:25):
where the Klan was and had thisface-off with the Klan.
There were police there andthat's the only reason probably
there wasn't terrible violencethat day, because the Klansmen
and Nazis there were armed withall sorts of weapons and the
Communist Workers' Party folksthought this was a victory that
(12:47):
they had forced the Klan backinside.
They disrupted their event andthe Klan said at that moment
we'll get revenge.
But it's more complicated thanthat, mario, because there was a
police informant involved inthis who, when asked if he could
(13:11):
find out what the Klan wasgoing to do in response to the
November 3rd march, he went downand told a room full of 80
Klansmen that it was theirpatriotic duty to come to
Greensboro and confront thecommunists.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
It's interesting when you think about all this and
looking at the video.
If you haven't had a chance togo to my website or to watch the
stream, you can do so by goingto onairmariocom to watch all
the visuals.
Make sure you're a subscriberto the podcast.
Go to your favorite podcastingplatform and just search us
phenomenon with mario magana,our guest this evening.
(13:52):
Aaron shutterly wrote a bookabout the massacre from 1979.
Let's go back in time to whenyou first started to do your
research on this situation.
Was this something that youwere?
When you look back now, wereyou like, oh yeah, this is
something that it intrigued you.
What was the biggest piece toyou that that just spoke to your
(14:18):
heart when you're like, wow,this is, I need more people need
to know about this, and whatmade you want to write a book
about it.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
A couple things.
One is, you know, I was sort ofgrew up in the 70s, and I
wanted to know more about thistime that I'd grown up with.
You know, I'd grown up in ruralMaine.
I wasn't anywhere close toGreensboro or events like this
Right, and I thought, wow, youknow there was a lot going on
when I was a kid that I had noidea about.
(14:48):
So that was part of it.
The other part of it, though,was when I started to sort of
poke around in Greensboro was tosee how powerful the narratives
around this event still were,the degree to which it still
divided that city, and you knowI was on the phone with a former
mayor of Greensboro who startedyelling at me that this was a
(15:11):
waste of time and I shouldn't belooking into this.
You know why was I doing it?
And I had other similarencounters like that, you know,
and as a journalist andhistorian, when someone's that
angry about me looking atsomething, it makes me want to
look at it more.
Of course, I also had been soimpressed with the humanity of
(15:37):
Nelson Johnson and his wifeJoyce the humanity of Nelson
Johnson and his wife Joyce thatI thought these seem to be
pretty special people.
I want to understand how it isthat they could have become
communists, how it is that theysurvived the trauma of an event
like this where they lost fiveof their close friends, and how
they had worked to try toactually bring some reckoning
(16:02):
for this and reconciliationaround this in Greensboro.
So you know there are a wholebunch of questions that I came
to this with.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
And when we talk about Communist Party or the
communist movement, I mean mostpeople think of like like you
said earlier, most people thinkof like the former Soviet Union.
I mean they think of that andthe word is in most of those who
grew up 70s, 60s, 70s, the GenXers, the baby boomers really
(16:33):
know that word to be a very evilword.
I mean the 60s as well, I meanthe 60s as well.
I know that when you talk aboutthe Fidel Castro movement, you
talk about, you know, theassassination attempt on, or the
attempt on the assassinationWith Against Kennedy and them
taking Oswald and him being apart of this movement, or you
(16:57):
know how he had his ownSituation going on.
That word just seems to be suchan evil word In American
history, this movement.
Or you know how he had his ownsituation going on.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
That word just seems to be such an evil word in
American history Totally, andthat's one of the reasons I
wanted to take this on was tosort of explore the humanity
behind that word and see what itreally meant in this case.
And you know, and the otherthing is, what's interesting to
me is, you know, j Edgar Hoover?
Let's just talk about J EdgarHoover for a minute.
(17:25):
You know, led the FBI for 48years and he did so much to make
that us have that visceralfeeling to that word communism,
right.
I mean that was part of hisproject was to make us terrified
of what that word meant, andthe thing is is that he was
(17:46):
calling people communists whoweren't communists because they
advocated for equal rights forblack people, and so the word
gets used in our politicalsociety and our culture in so
many different ways, and so Ithought, you know, I want to
know who these people really areand what they really stand for,
(18:06):
because so often we get to thatword and we just stop, as you
say, you know, and it's like awall.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
It really is.
I mean, you're right, becausewhen you start to talk about
some of the stuff, when you goback in history and you listen
to J Edgar Hoover talk, I dorecall him in a lot of things.
A lot of political thingsduring that time were used, just
as you referenced, and it blowsmy mind to think that they
(18:35):
would use that word to beextreme.
You know, now communists wouldbe liberal.
I believe they may use thatword, you know, like tie that
into that piece where instead ofusing liberal back then they
use communist, as as I.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
that's how I, I look at it, how I well, it was
interesting to see in thispresidential campaign that just
happened.
Uh, trump calling kamala harriscomrade kamala, as you were
right and using that and Ithought is that landing?
I mean, is that having anyimpact right now?
(19:12):
I mean, are we still scared ofthat?
And you know, it occurred to meas I was thinking about it that
he may have been making sort ofa sly reference to race as much
as to politics in regards tocalling Kamala Comrade Kamala,
(19:44):
do you feel like this country ismore racist now than it ever
has been?
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Or do you feel like the country was in the closet
racist and then, after the 2016election, everyone just showed
up to play?
You know?
Speaker 3 (19:59):
You know, I think there are a lot of things going
on.
Race is part of it, and so I'lladdress your question directly,
but I think there are otherpieces to this, and one of the
things that intrigued me aboutthe Communist Workers Party is
they weren't focused only onrace, they were focused on class
(20:22):
and they were focused on, youknow, rights for poor people of
all colors white, black, youknow, uh, brown, you know
whatever and and so I think thatI just want to be careful of
over determining, sure, race,you know what I mean, and saying
that's the root of everything,when I don't necessarily think
(20:44):
it always is the root ofeverything, but to your point, I
think.
I mean, there's no question,there is a racist history, there
are racist institutions, andwhat happens to me, and one of
the things that I noticed doingthis book, is when leaders call
it out and empower it, itbecomes worse, and when leaders
(21:07):
don't do that, you know we canact a little better, but it's
been empowered right now, youknow, it's been whistled to the
foreground as opposed to kept inthe background.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
It's interesting when you're talking about having the
conversations and starting toput the book together.
Uh, in regards to resistance,uh, you, being a caucasian male,
is it that people were afraidof what we would some would call
revisionist history?
Because it's not you, I don'tknow that you're, you're not
(21:40):
rewriting history.
Clearly, I think that you aredocumenting, or you're taking
from what transcribed whatactually happened in narrating
in a book, without a bias of anyflavor.
From my understanding that youwere just trying to strictly
stick to the facts and you weregetting some resistance.
(22:03):
Because, let's be honest, it's,it's not pretty in american
history that that those types ofthings aren't that's ugly.
I mean, you know we're the homeof the free and the brave and
you know I it.
Just it does it.
To me it seems like you weregetting some resistance well, I
(22:23):
got some resistance, for sure.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
I think it's uh, you know, you have the clan on one
hand right with their idea of a,a, a white ethno state
essentially right and sure wecan talk about that.
You have some people who wantedto upset the whole system in
(22:46):
the order, the american systemand establishment, in order to
create something new.
But then you have sort of thegreensboro uh business and uh
political class.
They want a place that isstable, good for business, it's
a company town, right, and sostirring that pot doesn't serve
(23:10):
the interests, to their mind, ofcreating an image of a
progressive southern state whereeveryone gets along, or
progressive southern city whereeveryone gets along.
That is southern city whereeveryone gets along.
That is a place you shouldbring your Fortune 500 company
to.
And so I think some of theresistance, you know, comes from
telling stories that areuncomfortable and making people
(23:32):
think, huh, that happened there.
Well, you know.
But yeah, I mean, this projecttook me seven years, mario,
because there were hundreds ofthousands of pages of documents,
there were three trials, it wasone of the three largest FBI
investigations at the time inAmerican history, and so the
(23:53):
amount of material to sort ofstudy and try to process was
overwhelming and I have over athousand footnotes in this book
because I tried to play itstraight down the line in that
sense.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Our guest tonight, aaron Chudley, who has a book
available.
You can find it on his website,which we have linked in the
podcast.
If you're not a podcastsubscriber, if you're not a
podcast subscriber, if you'relistening and driving, uh, don't
write this down, but you goback and subscribe to the
podcast or uh, go to aaronshutterlycom to purchase this
(24:29):
book.
Uh, and you have multiple booksout there.
Obviously, we talked about that.
When you're going through thesedocuments in a seven year in
the making project, do you feel,did you find something in there
, a nugget, that you would say,wow, I had no clue that this was
a good or bad or indifferent,something that you learned other
(24:49):
than what you kind of had anoverview of.
But what was something in yourresearch during your, you know,
these seven years?
What was something that youtook away that you were like,
damn, I didn't know about that.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Yeah, there were a lot of things.
So first of all I want to sayjust sort of how I tried to tell
this story was more like anovel.
It's through characters andthere were some wonderful
characters to mine, in additionto the Johnsons who I've
mentioned.
You know, the informantKlansman, eddie Dawson, is a
(25:22):
fascinating character to me.
The FBI agent who led theGreensboro investigation, a man
named Cecil Moses, spent hoursand hours talking with me about
his worldview and what heremembered and how it came to
pass.
So I really tried to leave nostone unturned.
But here's something, a couplethings.
(25:44):
One is a lot of people haveheard of what happened at Kent
State in 1970, when someNational Guardsmen shot and
killed four Vietnam Warprotesters and killed four
Vietnam War protesters, and thiswas, you know, an American
(26:06):
tragedy.
What people don't know is thatthe year before, in 1969, on the
campus of North Carolina StateA&T North Carolina A&T the
African-American, thehistorically black university in
Greensboro, the AfricanAmerican, the historically black
university in Greensboro aconfrontation led to the largest
(26:27):
military action on an Americancampus in our history 650
National Guardsmen, helicoptersdropping tear gas, arresting
hundreds of students.
I mean, it's this remarkablething and you know what I came
(26:48):
to understand is I couldn'tunderstand what happened in 1979
without understanding what hadhappened in 1969, and how, in a
sense, the sides in Greensborohad been defined at that time,
including with Nelson Johnson,who was part of that history in
1969.
So that was one thing that blewmy mind.
I didn't know about this huge,you know, uprising.
Another thing, though, was Ilearned a lot about FBI history
(27:13):
that people haven't looked at,and this is sort of and this is
sort of J Edgar Hoover dies in1972.
Watergate happens, the scandalsaround Nixon right after that,
in which the FBI is sort ofimplicated in helping Nixon and
(27:33):
also helps push Nixon out ofoffice.
And then there's somethingcalled the Church Committee, led
by Senator Frank Church fromIdaho, which goes into illegal
activities in the FBI and CIA.
This is why we know about, forexample, the assassination
attempts on Castro by the CIA isbecause of the Church Committee
and the FBI, which had been,you know, the most trusted
(27:57):
institution in America underHoover, all of a sudden people
don't trust it, the morale islow, agents are leaving and
they're trying to regain theirfooting, and what I ended up
learning was what happened inGreensboro had a lot to do with
what the FBI wanted to do, whichwas regain its footing, regain
(28:18):
its authority as a lawenforcement institution, and
they were using what happened ingreensboro to do that, and they
ultimately succeeded inre-establishing themselves.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
I'm trying to remember if, uh, if was, was
herbert walker bush?
Was Herbert Walker Bush thedirector of the FBI then?
Speaker 3 (28:43):
or was it later?
No, it was a guy named well,William Webster Okay, Judge
Webster was in 1979, and rightbefore that had been a man named
Clarence Kelly, and he hadreally done the yeoman work of
sort of beginning to recalibratethe FBI for the post-Hoover era
.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
It's interesting because when you think of Hoover
and we don't the topic doesn'tcome up here on the radio show
very often, but I'm very muchreminded with the name J Edgar
Hoover.
You may not be, and I'll putthis out there for everyone who
may or may not know, but therewas an incident here in
Washington back in the 40s.
(29:25):
It was called the Murray Islandincident and in that incident
there was supposedly allegedlythese men in black that came out
.
But J Edgar Hoover was the onethat sent the guys out to go
investigate what was going on atthe Murray Island incident,
which was who knows if it wasUFOs or what was actually what
(29:45):
took place.
But it's always interesting tohear the name J Edgar Hoover and
it always makes me, it alwaystakes me back to something that
I've done my research on inregards to an incident that
happened close in here, which isjust I'm in West Seattle, so
just west of me, a little bitover by uh vashon island, uh,
obviously the home of uh mountrainier and the uh kenneth
(30:11):
arnold, uh ufo sighting.
So when people say roswell, Ialways like to put this out
there.
Remember washington, ithappened here first.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
So we are home yeah, we're.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
I always.
I always felt like we are.
We're the home for the mostparanormal ufo sightings, but
obviously the incident may,something may have crashed over
there.
Kenneth arnold saw the thestuff here in 47, prior to the,
the stuff in roswell, I think,later on in june, june or July
or whatever that may be.
But getting back to your storyon a tangent, so my apologies
(30:45):
there, but what's interesting tome when you think about the 60s
, 69, a revolution of this wasthe time when we're talking.
I mean the separation ofCaucasian kids, you know,
colored kids going to differentschools, the water situation
(31:07):
blacks had African Americans hadtheir own bathrooms, you know
it, just things that we don'tfathom to this day.
The equality of life, it just,I mean it wasn't that long ago
that these types of things weregoing on.
It really, and it's startlingto think that, you know, I
(31:33):
couldn't sit down to have dinnerwith somebody and that may have
been some other descent otherthan you know, caucasian, being
someone who's, you know, italian, hispanic, mexican, american, a
melting pot of you know,different ethnicities, I mean it
(31:53):
just blows my mind to thinkthat, yes, there were
segregation going on, and I knowfor a lot of people that live
in the pacific northwest.
I know you're talking aboutliving up in, up in your neck of
the woods in maine.
Is that right when we said yougrew up?
Speaker 3 (32:07):
I grew up in maine.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Yeah, how the the shelter of the.
I don't know that there was alot of that going on here back
in those days, at least fromwhat I've heard from others who
grew up during that time.
They said there wasn't a lot ofthat segregation going on here.
So I don't know if you saw thatwhen you were growing up
segregation Well, not really.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
I mean, it was, the closest thing we had was, you
know, Native Americanreservations, not too far from
where I lived.
We didn't have a lot of blackpeople living in rural Maine for
sure.
But my parents my mother wasfrom New York and my father was
(32:52):
from Cincinnati and they'd goneback to the land in Maine and so
I grew up on a little homestead, you know, with no electricity
and an outhouse and a biggardens and a root cellar, so
yeah, and so they hadparticipated in civil rights
activity and brought thosestories and that history into
(33:13):
the home, and that's how I beganto learn about it.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
And that's interesting that, that's cool
that your parents brought thathistory back to share with you
to continue the evolution ofwhat they thought was the path,
the correct path obviously,equality for everyone.
Um, do you feel like in thisbook that you, this book that
(33:42):
you've done here, are therepieces that remind you of modern
times right now?
Speaker 3 (33:54):
yeah, I mean so.
For example, you were justshowing video of that shooting
on november 3rd 1979.
Pretty amazing, right thatthere were four, four camera
crews set up that day to coverit.
And so we have this incrediblydetailed visual record of what
(34:19):
happened.
And still, no one was everacquitted.
But that, in a sense, thatvisual piece, is part of what
drew me to the story, becausetoday we have cell phones, we
have cameras everywhere.
Everything seems to be capturedon film.
That was much rarer then.
And to see how it then traveledthrough our judicial system,
right.
(34:39):
But you know who are you goingto believe me?
Or your lion eyes, right?
And so you can watch thishappen and then create a whole
different, alternative narrativearound what is in those
pictures and decide that whatyou see actually isn't the truth
.
And, and that's something thatyou know, we've been dealing
(35:00):
with recently in a number ofdifferent, it seems to me,
settings, but particularly, Imean as far as I'm concerned,
you know, january 6th 2021 wow,um, I mean yeah, 100.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
It's interesting because you think about I'm like
wait, people died that day.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
You know there's not like it.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
I always tell everyone I mean yeah, I do a
conspiracy radio show.
There's certain conspiracies wejust don't cover.
I don't cover 9-11, I don'treally cover the conspiracy of
you know, you know thecoronavirus.
There's no, you know thecoronavirus.
There's no you know people die.
These are people that are dying.
Now, you know I'm not an expertand you know people are like
(35:40):
well, you know blah, blah blah.
However, that plays out January6th, another one.
I don't subscribe to any typeof garbage in regards to
conspiracy, in regards to that,when people die at mass
quantities and even the loss oflife, I is, it's not, that's not
(36:02):
something you play with and toywith, and it's interesting
because you're you are correctin that regards to that january
6th, and that was four years ago.
That was four years ago.
Can you imagine if that was theopposite?
Uh, if those were all liberalsthat had stormed the capital
right yeah I.
(36:22):
I don't know that that is goingto be the case this year, but I
don't think so yeah, but I justdon't know that, that's in their
nature.
It just to me, the playbook inwhich took place on January 6th
and I always like to telleveryone that there was a
(36:44):
gentleman who wrote a bookcalled Behold the Pale Horse,
william Cooper, was very extreme.
And then when that whole groupthat came out, the QAnon group,
that had this huge movementsomeone who's read the book back
in 2000, that was such a longtime ago I was like whoa, wait a
(37:07):
second, this is all familiar.
What is going on and sureenough it was a lot of what was
going on was coming out of thebook behold the pale horse and
the q anon really made it liketheir bible and and and I was
like this is wild, this is wild.
And in in that, in that factthat you know, to think that
(37:30):
someone who had passed away, hepredicted his own death but he
had issues on his own, but forthem to take this conspiracy
book, that was really off kilter.
I mean people going to theserealms of concentration,
modern-day concentration camps,things of that nature, that's
(37:53):
how far off it was.
So to think about the January6th thing, I'll let you pick
back up, but yeah, you're right.
I mean people died that day.
I mean a lot of you know.
There was a loss of life andwho's being accountable?
Who's being held accountablefor that, for those actions?
Speaker 3 (38:13):
So yeah, being held accountable for that, for those
actions.
So yeah, mario, have you.
Did you ever come across a guynamed Harold Covington out there
?
He was a.
He had something called theNorthern Front, I think it was
called.
It was a sort of idea of anorganization that he lived in um
bremerton, washington, and wasuh, basically advocating a white
(38:37):
ethnostate.
What's interesting the reason Ibring him up is he was the head
of the american nazi party andwas from north carolina and it
was some of his men that showedup to uh the march and were
shooting that day and he thenwent out and reestablished
(38:59):
himself in the in the Northwest.
But I've always wondered, youknow, how he sort of escaped the
law to some degree for so long,you know, and I always wondered
if maybe he'd been some sort ofescaped the law to some degree
for so long, you know, and Ialways wondered if maybe he'd
been some sort of informant.
But I don't know Certainlyunclear, you know.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
It's interesting that you think about that.
Yeah, could he have been aplanted seed from the CIA, you
know?
And then him being sent to theNorthwest and especially
bremerton.
I mean there's not much goingon out there.
It's very rural, it's very, youknow it is a very now it's, you
(39:44):
know it's it's been modernizedbut it's still.
There's still a lot of, there'sa lot of twigs in between, you
know, cities and townships andthings of that nature.
I mean, I'm very familiar withBremerton, so putting him up in
the shelf up here in the PacificNorthwest, a good hiding spot
if he's a former informant ofthe CIA or FBI.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
Yeah, one of the things that you ask about,
things that surprised me.
You ask about things thatsurprise me.
Another one that surprised mewas the degree to which the FBI
had infiltrated the Klan.
In the late 60s and into the70s.
There were Klan claverns inNorth Carolina with eight
(40:28):
members and seven of them wereinformants.
So you had informants informingon informants and seven of them
were informants.
So you had informants informingon informants.
And so you know that was one ofthe things the church committee
in the mid-70s was reallylooking at was how informants
were used and whether they werebeing used to really prevent
violence or to exacerbateviolence in some cases.
(40:50):
And that was what they tried todo was to the, after that,
limit the way that informantswould be used and make it much
harder to sort of set up aninformant network.
And that's one of the thingsthat the FBI wanted loosen, so
that they could use informantsmore liberally again after that,
(41:12):
after Greensboro, and, and sowhat they would say was well,
more liberally again afterGreensboro.
And so what they would say waswell, if we'd had an informant,
we could have prevented theviolence in Greensboro in 1979.
And they were able to use thatto get those restrictions
loosened so they could useinformants again more like as
they had under Hoover.
(41:32):
But the problem with thatargument was that the police
informant had been an FBIinformant for a long time and it
actually told his FBI handlerseverything.
He told the Greensboro PoliceDepartment.
So they knew, but unofficially.
And so there were three lawenforcement outfits the Bureau
(41:54):
of Alcohol, tobacco and Firearms, the FBI and the Greensboro
Police Department.
That could have prevented theviolence that day and didn't.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Oh, man, you would think that protect and serve
regardless.
Protect and serve.
Our guest this evening, aaronChudderly, has a website
AaronChudderlycom.
His book available on hiswebsite Morningside the 1979
Greensboro Massacre and theStruggle for an American City
(42:27):
Soul.
Aaron, I got to ask you.
I don't't have to ask you, butI'm going to ask you.
In all the times that you sitand chat about this story and
all the stuff you've done thisone and all your other books do
you feel like this one took alot out of you in regards to
(42:49):
research, the like a little bitof the, you know, resistance?
Do you feel like this one tookit out, that this one was a big
project, like striving for?
You're like, wow, this, my babyfinally grew up and I'm like,
wow, I mean, that was a hard one, you know you had a hard one.
There's no question, mario it it, you know it's like your second
(43:13):
child, right, You're like themiddle one a little bit.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
Yeah, it was hard to sit with a lot of this stuff for
so long, and it's one of thereasons it took so long, because
I had to figure out what did Ireally believe and what did I
really think, especially whenthere's such passionate people
on different sides of thistelling me, you know, what they
believed and why it was right.
And so it took me a long timeto sort of sort through the
(43:37):
material and, you know, go overit and go over it again and make
sure that I was writingsomething that I felt was true
and not just parroting you knowsomeone's point of view.
But at the end of the day Ifeel like I accomplished that
and told this sort ofcomplicated, roiling tale of you
(43:59):
know our country and how hardit is and sometimes to escape
from our own history, escapefrom ourselves and our own
limitations.
But I'm encouraged by thepeople who keep trying, and you
know they're the ones that keptme going through this.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
But I'm encouraged by the people who keep trying and
you know they're the ones thatkept me going through this and
the different characters in thebook.
As you said, you wrote thecharacters, the members from the
clan.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
were you able to have conversations with them, or is
it more of a historical?
What's interesting is most ofthem are no longer alive.
You know, they lived hard.
They didn't live as long assome of the other people, sure.
But also, when I tried to getin touch with family members,
they really didn't want to talkabout it and so.
(44:54):
But there was so much legalmaterial, so much newspaper
article material, so many goodinterviews from that time, that
I still felt like I was able torepresent their point of view
and get into their heads prettywell from what was available to
me.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
And when you said these families didn't want to
chat, was it because they werelike they wanted to move past
that piece of history?
Like it was not, they weren'tproud of that piece, or was it
more like they were ashamed?
What were you getting from theresistance in regards to them
not wanting to talk?
Speaker 3 (45:30):
I sensed that they felt there was no benefit to
talking that it was hard,shameful.
You know what good could comeof dredging that up for them and
their families.
That was my sense.
Sure, I didn't get close enoughto be able to ask that question
and let them answer it, butyeah, that's what I felt.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
You would think, yeah , I mean being tied to a
someone's last name of someonewho may be a clan member or
something that may be shameful.
I shouldn't say a clan member,because maybe not all of them
are bad, but who knows?
Um, this is gotta be good ineverybody, I'm assuming.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
But um, let me, yeah, let me pick up on that for a
second, mario, because that wassomething I did not want to
create one-dimensionalcharacters in this book.
And they said you know, webelieve in the dignity of every
(46:33):
human being, you know, and thatevery human being has the
potential for good, and I reallytried to represent that with
every single character that Icould in this book, you know,
and make them fully human, likeI wasn't interested in just, you
(46:56):
know, setting up, you know,easy bad guys and good guys and
um, so, you know, I thinkthere's there's a lot of nuance
in this book that people will,um, I leave it up to the reader
to figure out often, uh, howthey feel about the different
characters man in, I think, 46years of my life.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
I mean, it was something that came across and I
was like, wait, how is this not?
How am I not informed?
And I felt like a completeidiot.
Someone who loves history, goodand bad and different, I'd love
to learn about the country, themodern day, of what was going
(47:32):
on, the growth of the country,where we were at during these
times, uh, so we don't go back.
I think that in a, in a youngersociety, you know, I I know
there is a really young group ofindividuals who are growing up
right now, who are coming intotheir own voting rights,
wisewise things of that nature.
(47:54):
But we have to remember,regardless if you're a
Republican or a Democrat orhowever you lean, whichever way
of the fence, it is mostimportant that we understand the
American history, where we'vebeen and where we're going, so
that we can understand andcontinue to grow, evolve as a
country.
And, Aaron, I have to say Iappreciate you being able to
(48:18):
take a seven year long project,put it to paper, uh, and be able
to provide a little piece ofhistory.
That's probably not the sexiestpiece of history in american
history, but to be able to giveus almost kind of an overview,
(48:39):
like a 200 foot overview of whathappened, with giving us the
ability to learn some of thesecharacters and kind of like go
through that process with themduring your journey in this book
.
Um, what other projects are youworking on right now outside of
promoting the book and talkingabout this event that took place
(49:00):
in 1979?
Speaker 3 (49:02):
Well, really, the book just came out less than a
month ago so it's been a prettyfull-court press on that for now
and I've been traveling a lotand doing book events, which has
been really interesting.
I mean, I've met a lot ofinteresting people with
connections to this history.
And also, I would just say, youknow, part of the reason I
(49:26):
wrote the book, and about thisspecifically, wasn't only that
Greensboro is an important placein the country, which it is and
I think is often overlooked,but that everywhere in this
country has difficult historythat you know it could spend
some time thinking about andtrying to understand and more
deeply understand one's ownplace.
(49:48):
Because of it is what I thought, and there's a way in which
Greensboro provides a model forthat, because they ended up
going through a truth andreconciliation process in
Greensboro to try to understandwhat had happened in 1979.
And I think that that was acourageous thing to do instead
of just sweeping it under therug.
But to your point, you know I'mMario, I've lived in Cuba for
(50:12):
six months, I've lived in CostaRica, I've lived in Mexico for
almost 11 years.
Latin America is near and dearto me and so I'm planning to
write my next book and I hope itwill take much less time than
this one did.
Uh, about Mexico.
Speaker 2 (50:28):
And when you lived in Cuba cause I know a lot of us
have not been to Cuba Um, whatwas the best part?
What did you love about Cubathe most?
I mean, were you?
Was it still under Fidel atthat point when you were there,
fidel?
Speaker 3 (50:44):
was still alive when I was there.
Yep, okay and um.
But what I loved was the people.
They were just wonderful, somany wonderful people, and one
of the things you know throughall the hardship that they were
living through there they werein general quite well educated.
(51:06):
You could have an interestingconversation with just about any
Cuban anywhere in that country.
And that was pretty fascinatingNow.
I had some really interestingexperiences there.
So, for example, I was therewhen George W Bush was president
and said that one Fourth ofJuly and I happened to be there
(51:30):
then that any Cuban who couldjust get to the international
water line international line inthe ocean would be picked up by
Coast Guard and brought to theUnited States.
Now I was living in this nicelittle section of the city and
had a lot of neighbors who wereclaimed to be very
(51:50):
pro-revolution.
But when this happened, all ofa sudden they started asking me
in for coffee in the privacy oftheir homes, to ask me what I
thought about this and whetherthey should try to get to the
international water line, and itgave me a real insight into
what was going on there.
Speaker 2 (52:09):
It's interesting that you say that.
I mean, maybe one day we'llhave the opportunity to you know
, I know during the Obamaadministration there were a few
that you know took the libertiesto try to get to Cuba and
travel and whatnot.
It's interesting when you lookat the pictures and it is almost
(52:29):
like someone took a stopwatchand just stopped time in regards
to vehicles and things of thatnature.
I'm sure that's not still thecase these days, but interesting
that you said that I have to goback and look.
I don't recall, was there aninflux back then?
I don't recall that that makingheadline news.
Speaker 3 (52:48):
No, it didn't.
No, it didn't make any no, no,in fact, what happened was the
next day.
I was walking down it's calledthe Malecon, which is the famous
seawall Sure Along the edge ofHavana and I noticed that I was
the only one walking there.
Oh, and I noticed that I wasthe only one walking there.
It was very strange, becauseusually it's crowded and
(53:10):
bustling and there are peopleselling things and talking to
you and swimming and fishing.
And I suddenly noticed I wasall alone and I looked and there
was a cop every 30 feet andapparently there were cops all
along the coast trying toprevent people from going out
successfully.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
You're staying here.
You're not going anywhere.
Speaker 3 (53:32):
Yeah, they knew I wasn't going to suddenly jump in
a boat and head off back to theinternational waterline, so
they let me walk along there.
But there were no Cubans there.
Speaker 2 (53:41):
Oh, that's interesting times.
I was thinking about this as wewere having a conversation
about the cuba piece when youwere writing this book, and what
made me brought this to myattention was the television,
the tv stations that were therereporting.
I know that were you able tofind anybody from these stations
(54:03):
that were still alive to sharetheir insight?
Speaker 3 (54:08):
Yeah, I had a wonderful conversation with a
cameraman named Ed Boyd.
Speaker 2 (54:13):
Oh, cameraman, they're always good to, they
always give a good insight.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (54:16):
Uh, uh, he's an African American guy cameraman.
He'd been in the uh, I think itwas the air force and then had
had, uh, trained to be acameraman and just loved it.
I mean, this was he ended up inthe perfect spot, he had a go
bag and he loved just jumping inthe car and going to the next
shoot and filming.
And so he spent a long timetelling me his story and he
(54:43):
thought, you know he watchedthis, you know he at one point
dropped his camera because, youknow, he thought a gun was being
aimed at him.
And then he jumped in the carhe'd come in and kept filming
and what he described in hismind was he thought it was a
military operation, essentially,that the K and nazis had run
(55:07):
there, that they knew exactlywhat they were doing, they fired
a shot in the air to scare theactivists back toward, uh, the
real shooters, and that the realshooters had then, you know,
taken the guns out of the trunkof the car and picked off people
, um and um.
So it was a very interestingconversation to have with him
and what he saw in front of himas something that he thought
(55:31):
looked, uh, very well plannedinteresting.
Speaker 2 (55:36):
Interesting, I mean when you're, when you're sitting
there and you're looking atthings from a different eye and
most photographers are trying tolook for what could possibly be
the best shot, and someone whohas been in the media business,
I mean, if it leads, it leads.
But I'm not sure that he waslooking for that.
(55:57):
But that's an interesting takethat he you share with us here
this evening.
Uh, on the show.
I mean, was that?
Was that?
Do you think that was what thecase?
Was that it was?
Was it provoked by the clan?
Was it like what was the tipoff for most of like this whole?
Was it?
Was it like a warning shot thattriggered the entire thing to
(56:20):
go down for someone who's neverlistened to, never heard the
story before?
Was that the case where it wasa?
Speaker 3 (56:27):
yeah.
So what ed boyd picked up inhis camera, which is to me
extremely telling, although itdidn't play out in the courts
this way um, for various reasons, but um, what you can see, as
the caravan is driving up,there's a young man loading what
(56:50):
is a powder pistol, beforeanything has happened, and then
some sort of shouting and someyou know couple cars get kicked
a little bit.
But he then stands out of thepickup truck, he's in and shoots
this powder pistol into the air.
(57:11):
That creates this plume of darksmoke and that was the signal.
It seems perhaps to start afight.
Now the defense attorneys latersaid this was a friendly
warning shot to tell people tostand down, to not fight, to
scare them away so they wouldn'tfight.
(57:32):
That just doesn't seem toreally make sense when you're in
it.
Speaker 2 (57:38):
Sure, our guest this evening, aaron Chudderly, from
his website.
You can go and purchase hisbook at Aaron Chudderly dot com,
our guest this evening.
As we wrap things up close tothe top of the hour here from
the Pacific Northwest, aaron, Igot to say thank you for coming
(57:58):
to hang out with us.
Anything else that you want,let's, let's.
Let's wrap this up, put a bowon this.
So we're saying that thecountry right now we're better
off than we were, I kid, but inthis piece here, do you feel
that after seven years writingthis book, going through the
(58:19):
entire thing here, this piece ofhistory will go down as a
divide in the line where I?
I mean, I'm trying like is thislike the 69 type of situation?
Was this more of like?
Was this like the dissolving ofthe clan?
(58:42):
Was this more of like the, the,you know the, the evolution of
marches?
What did we learn here?
Speaker 3 (58:51):
I think, to be honest with you, mario, I think it is
a detonating moment for thealt-right and for white power, I
think, because no one was heldaccountable, that there was a
sense of impunity andempowerment and that people
thought, wow, you know, theculture really supports us to
(59:13):
some degree.
So I think, in that case, thisevent is truly significant.
I think it's also significantbecause it, you know,
essentially puts an end to theultra-left you know it's
terrifying the you know sort ofhomegrown communist movement is
ended by this to some degree,and I think it also leads to,
(59:41):
you know, a sort of moreempowerment, in a way
complicated empowerment, of lawenforcement.
That we need to keep thinkingabout, you know, is do we want
more transparency or lesstransparency?
And I think that that'ssomething that is an ongoing
conversation.
Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
Our guest tonight, aaron Chatterley, from his own
website, aaronchatterleycom.
We'll have all the linksprovided.
If you'd like to get a copy ofhis book, you can do so by going
to our website or going to thepodcast link.
Go to your favorite podcastingplatform and search US
Phenomenon with Mario Magana theMassacre, the Morningside.
(01:00:21):
His book is called theMorningside the 1979 Greensboro
Massacre massacre and thestruggle for an american city
soul.
Again our guest author, aaronshutterly, thank you so much for
hanging out with us thisevening as we wrap up things
from the pacific northwest.
I'd like to thank our guest,aaron shutterly for taking the
(01:00:41):
time this evening to chat withus.
Uh, for my entire crew, markchristopher, jeff jens and
sophia magana and myself, mariomagana, be sure to look up at
the sky, because you never knowwhat you might see.
Good night.
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