Seeking Closure on 'Greensboro Massacre'

"Generally, truth commissioners see themselves as listeners," she told her rapt audience. "What do we look for? It's not just the suffering. It's an acknowledgment that people have suffered, that a wrong has been done."

Patricia Clark, a commissioner and executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a New York organization that advocates nonviolent change, said she wanted to know how the demonstration was organized.

And Angela Lawrence, a nursing assistant who witnessed the shootings as a girl, wanted to know why Johnson led his band of mostly white pro-union advocates to her black neighborhood to hold an anti-Klan rally.

"So many children were there," she said. "We had no prior notice."

Lawrence does not have far to look, said Michael Schlosser, the former prosecutor who is now a lawyer in private practice. She should ask Johnson, he said. He was the leader.

Schlosser is among those who believe the commission is a waste of time. How will the panel produce a balanced report if former Klan and Nazi Party members do not testify? he asked.

The commission has no official support from the city of Greensboro or the state of North Carolina and is funded by grants from two New York foundations.

In contrast, the South Africa Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which investigated generations of human rights abuses under apartheid, was backed by the government and possessed authority that the Greensboro commission lacks. These include subpoena power that would compel former members of the Klan and Nazi Party to come forward, and the ability to grant amnesty.

Without such tools, the effort seems fated to be at best one-sided, the mayor and other opponents said.

Besides, Schlosser said, reconciliation between the races has already occurred in Greensboro. As an example, he pointed to Willena Cannon, a black resident who believed that Schlosser was biased against the rally's organizers. A few years ago, Schlosser said, Cannon called on him to represent a son who was accused of a crime. "In my mind, that's reconciliation," he said.

"Ain't that a bip?" Cannon said when she learned of Schlosser's comment. "White people have a tendency to speak for black people here. I didn't choose him to represent my son. My son is grown, and he chose him. I never would have chosen him."

She said, "I have not reconciled."