By Rev. Nelson Johnson
It is becoming clearer each day that our nation is trapped in what looks like a slow-motion train wreck. Our state and nation are in a dangerous period! The flood of claims and counterclaims from a divided nation is manifesting itself in growing falsehoods, growing confusion, growing fear, growing division, and growing episodes of random violence that is increasingly becoming targeted violence. All of the previously mentioned developments are likely contributing to a growing concentration of wealth on the one hand and growing poverty on the other. This toxic wind is blowing across our national/ cultural landscape including the diversity of peoples and all political parties.
This tragic direction seems designed and/or by a confluence of circumstances to greatly reduce confidence in our national government. Without a reasonably trusted government, with whatever flaws it might have, it is clear that we will degenerate into greater chaos and possibly Civil War; this reflects the “fierce urgency of now”.
Are we, the people of this state and nation, consigned to this bleak picture of our future? Do we have to wait for a vote in November of 2024 even as this slow-motion “train wreck” accelerates? Will the situation have deteriorated into a much more divided and dangerous period such that our vote would suppress and/or again be called into question, perhaps even more than before? Most importantly, can this growing destructive energy be re-channeled towards truth-seeking, justice-making, peace, healing, and reconciliation? We believe much of it can! We offer, as an addition to whatever efforts are currently being undertaken, a sincere authentic, and well-constructed Truth, Justice, Healing, and Reconciliation process, which we have already begun in North Carolina.
By way of background, on November 3, 1979, a Klan/Nazi death squad murdered five labor and community organizers (Black, White, Jewish, and Latino) at the starting point of a legally planned March, (for which a parade permit had been secured). The morning march was to flow into an all-day multi-racial conference of Black community leaders/organizers and White Textile mill union leaders and multi-racial workers from throughout the state of North Carolina and Southern Virginia related to further organizing the textile industry.
In the aftermath of that terrible Massacre, we were flooded with an avalanche of falsehoods; we, therefore, made use of the best existing international Truth models that helped people to see through the dense fog of falsehoods that blamed the victims for their deaths. It was in that context that the Beloved Community Center of Greensboro, with the help of Peru and in particular South Africa, carried out the first Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation process in the United States rooted in the learnings from the international models.
This daylight massacre, for the first time in the history of our nation, resulted in Klan and Nazi members together with police officers (Greensboro) being found jointly liable for wrongful death. It took a long time, and largely because of our local truth process, but the City of Greensboro, thirty-nine (39) years later, offered a quality apology for the role of its police officers and city leaders who were complicit in that tragic day.
Rooted in many years of experience, we look forward to being in statewide discussions with student and youth leaders, religious and faith leaders, worker and labor leaders plus the diversity of justice-loving (and would be justice-loving) people across the state about a proposed march from the western part of North Carolina to Wilmington NC
located on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean (from the mountains to the ocean). Wilmington is the only City in the United States whose government (a black-and-white fusion government) was violently overthrown (1898) by white supremacists.
Our pending proposed “long march” is partly inspired by that history and the great Salt March led by Mohandas Gandhi in 1930 as part of ridding India of dehumanizing and oppressive British colonial rule while growing a peace and justice culture.
We think a “long march” (which is part of a more comprehensive Truth process) winding through and holding weekly rallies in the various cities, towns, and rural areas as we bring together diverse people, (we truly mean diverse!) for deep listening and conversations. These gatherings will be growing quality new relationships as we agree upon truths (much of which will be rooted in local history) and a real desire for justice, all of which will be enormously helpful in uncovering the deep wounds of our “yesterdays”. During the entire march and afterward, we will place a major emphasis on voting.
This whole process must be carefully constructed; we know that it will require determined moral convictions, accurate people’s history, great patience, courageous conversations, deep listening, respectful speaking, and probative questions as essential components of seeking truth, justice, healing, and reconciliation. We expect to have made sufficient progress working out details including fundraising by our NC-TJRC ’23 Summit October 25-28, 2023 to make an official announcement; we anticipate it will be mid-March (2024) before the track from the mountain to the sea begins. Let’s talk!
We ask the prayers, suggestions, encouragement, participation, and financial support of all who see the potential of this undertaking and desire to help it succeed.