And I can tell you a thing that reassures me that things are a lot better here than most places in this country. And that includes race relations as a whole. You will find Greensboro to be a very tolerant community. I don't think you'll find a community that has a larger Jewish presence that enjoys the relations on that side of the human relations quotient like Greensboro does, and quite honestly, if we've done, probably quit jumping from bush to bush and trying to make more out of something that isn't there, we'd probably have better black-white relations than we do.

Further on he says regarding the Jewish leaders in Greensboro:

And the efforts were to simply organize the textile workers and the folks just wouldn't take no for an answer. The textile workers just didn't want to be organized. Primarily because of the Cones, some of our extremely far-sighted and progressive Jewish business people, (Cone is not Jewish) built homes and looked after their employees, much as you would your own children. It just really took extreme steps to have the employers to look after their employees. And yet their wages were not commensurate with someone who worked in a steel mill. Back in the fifties, they were making five dollars an hour to work in a steel mill—holding their breath in the eighties for thirty-eight dollars an hour, you know?

Further on he says:

The real victim I think in the process was the black community.

Well, I felt that both were using the other [Klan-Nazi group and the CWP] as a means to get their viewpoint across at the expense of the black community. The black community was caught, you know, in the crossfire. One, between the Communists who felt that they were going to be representatives of the black community and that they were speaking for the downtrodden and the underprivileged. And the Klan, who felt like they were the representatives for the white community, and they were speaking for the white community and whatever they did would tear the black community.

I think in the case, they both were sorely misled and I know they didn't—either group—speak for Greensboro. I think that's pretty much what the prevailing thought was within the community. We didn't want the Klan here anymore, we didn't want the Nazis or the Communists here. We were big kids, we could work out our problems with our neighbors. Subsequently, we think that a lot of our efforts went down the tubes because of that event. And you'd be mad too.

In closing he says when asked if " Were there any other points either during your tenureship as mayor or in general that you'd like to make?:

No. Well, you know, I think that most people would recognize that when I was mayor that if I didn't believe in what they were saying I'd work against them. I didn't care who they were. If I was in favor of it, then I would support it. As long as they were honest with me, I was honest with them. And I have to say in six years I think we pushed race relations to an all time high.

I feel that way. I don't know what kind of response you're getting from other parts of the community and talking to other people. I personally feel that when I left office last year, that race relations were better than they had been in the last, probably twenty years, since the sixties. And maybe, you know, there's a lot of things that should have.

During my very early years my mother became more or less crippled with arthritis and my father decided that she needed help with the every day chores of raising two very active children, after having already raised two and seeing them both off to marriage and the armed service.  Our first baby sitter or helper was named Cotton, a very pretty African-American girl of about 18 who was loving and caring to both my sister and myself.  She was full of fun and we tried not to get on her nerves while she sat with us and worked for Mom during much of the day on an average of three days a week.  I am always amazed at some of the names that many of the black people here in Tazewell took.  Many were descendants of slaves that had the surname of some of the older families in Claiborne, Grainger or Hawkins county.  And many first names were also taken so as not to offend the predominately white population.  Take for instance "Cotton" or "Pearl", two obvious first names that have obvious associate with being things that are "white". Then there was Lula Mae who sat with my sister and myself for another couple years as we got older. Lula Mae was a dead ringer for the character "Mammy" in Gone with the Wind, played by Hattie McDaniel (pictured to the right> . -  I say this with no disrespect for anyone but just to point out the obvious to most older Claiborne County residences.  Also there were names such as "Red" Cloud which would have an Indian sound or "Scrub" Robinson or "Chalk Eye" from the appearance of the so called.   Not until I grew into an adolescent did I learn that no all the African-American residence of Tazewell were descendants of former slaves but some were of a race called "Melungeon" that came from an area known as Newman's Ridge in Hancock County. I became very well aquainted with one particular descendant of this race named Vada Goins. A wonderful lady of Melungeon heritage that taught my sister and I respect more than anything else. She spread her time between working for us and Pearl and J.M. Campbell. But just like many of us we took on names that were either biblical or handed down from one of our grandmother's or grandfather's.  So with Barak Obama we must certainly say that he derives his name from from his father who, by all truth is of Muslim descent.   In Arab culture and under Islamic law, if your father is a Muslim, so are you.  To this I have found the following which I feel most represents my thoughts:.

Two of the most important characteristics about a person are their name and their word.  In Asian societies a person is addressed by their “Sir Name” (family or legacy) name followed by the first name.  The legacy of who we are is built upon those that have come before us, and for those that follow in your name.  Each one of us contributes something to the names that we are given and the names that we choose.  What has you name on it?

There is a false sense of anonymity with Internet use, as if no one really knows who you are or that it is you.  Do you choose to have internet pseudonyms?

Why?  Is so, which of the following fit your rational:

• Your pseudonym is a nickname that you have had for some time.
• Your pseudonym is an extension of your personality.
• Your pseudonym gives you the freedom to pretend to be someone else.
• Your pseudonym gives you the freedom to say what you really think.
• Your pseudonym gives you the freedom to say whatever, because it does not matter, for controversy, or “For Entertainment Purposes Only”.
• You use a pseudonym for privacy.
• You use a pseudonym as a professional name.

Are you willing to stand by your name “Sir” or “Pseudonym”!  Does your name represent those that have preceded you and does it give those that follow you firm footing and a clear path to where they want to go?

Put your name on your words, then judge, what’s in a name!

In “Greensboro's Child”, we get a much harsher picture of Jim Melvin and of the city of Greensboro. (I wonder whether Melvin was so uncooperative with Zucker because of how poorly he comes off in this documentary.) Coon shows evidence that the Greensboro police were monitoring the Klan that day, taking photographs of their approach to town. With two paid government informants in the Klan, it’s absurd to suggest that the police didn't know what was likely to transpire. The contrast between documentaries also brings out some important details that Zucker’s glosses over in "Greensboro: Closer to the Truth".   Zucker refers to the activists throughout as the Communist Workers Party, and suggests that's part of the reason they were so ill-treated. Coon makes it clear that they called themselves the Worker’s Viewpoint Organization until after five of their members were killed - only then did they declare themselves communists.

The impression Zucker’s film gives is of a town that’s reluctantly facing its dark past. The impression Coon’s gives is us a deeply troubled, racist city more concerned with smoothing over the dark past at the expense of justice. I realize both of those characterizations are likely unfair and inaccurate - I’m well aware that terrific bloggers like Ed Cone have covered this situation with far more detail, subtlety and grace than I could possibly summarize in this post. I’m fascinated first that an event of this magnitude in American civil rights history could have happened without most Americans knowing about it, and even more fascinated that two excellent documentaries frame the events in such different ways.