Book Club: Aran Shetterly with MORNINGSIDE: The 1979 Greensboro Massacre and the Struggle for an American City's Soul
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In November, 2024, World BEYOND War will be holding a weekly discussion each of four weeks of the brand new book MORNINGSIDE: The 1979 Greensboro Massacre and the Struggle for an American City's Soul with the author Aran Shetterly.
When you register for the club, we'll send you a signed copy of the book.
We'll let you know which parts of the book will be discussed each week along with the Zoom details to access the discussions.
When: For one hour on four Wednesdays, November 6, 13, 20, 27 at 20:00 UTC.
That's
Wednesday at 10 a.m. in Honolulu, noon in Los Angeles, 2 p.m. in Mexico
City, 3 p.m. in New York, 9 p.m. in Youndé, and 9 p.m. in Berlin.
Where: Zoom (details to be shared upon registration).
This is a small group series with limited space of up to 18 people.
Sign up to reserve your spot. We look forward to reading and discussing
this important book with you!
REGISTER HERE.
About the Book:
This amazing work of history about a forgotten
incident in a U.S. town raises critical questions about violence,
nonviolence, activism, justice, and reconciliation.
On the
morning of November 3, 1979, activists, mill workers, and supportive
local citizens were gathering in Greensboro, North Carolina at the black
public housing development, Morningside Homes. Four television news
crews set up across the street to film the start of the “Death to the
Klan” march. Shortly before 11:30 a.m., a nine-car caravan rolled toward
the crowd. “Here comes the Klan!” someone yelled. Then the shooting
started.
88 seconds later, five members of a multiracial, communist group
lay dead on the ground: Two were Jewish, one black, one Cuban, and one a
WASP graduate of Harvard. All were highly educated and deeply committed
to anti-racism and economic equality. Ten others were injured,
including the group’s leader, long-time Greensboro civil rights
activist, Nelson Johnson.
Greensboro’s mayor rushed to a local television station to
announce that this terrible incident of American political violence was
just an unfortunate accident. The real victim, he suggested, was
Greensboro, home to Quakers, an original depot of the Underground
Railroad, and some of the largest textile mills in the world. No one—not
even the Klan and American Nazi shooters—would ever be held criminally
responsible for the five murders.
In Morningside, Aran Shetterly delivers
an intimate account of an overlooked chapter in American history,
expertly reconstructed from legal documents, FBI and police files,
newspaper reports, and interviews with dozens of people connected to the
tragedy, including activists, journalists, lawyers, FBI agents, and
Greensboro police officers. While taking us through Reverend Nelson
Johnson and his wife Joyce Johnson’s long civil rights journey from the
1960s to the present and their search for the tools and methods to
achieve racial equality in Greensboro, he investigates the mystery at
the heart of the book: Could the police and federal agents have
prevented the deadly violence on November 3 and, if they could have, why
didn’t they?
At a time of surging racial violence around the country, Morningside offers
hope in the Johnsons’ tireless fight for justice and their refusal to
give up on America’s ideals. As the 45th anniversary of the Greensboro
Massacre approaches on November 3, 2024, this book will resonate with
anyone who lives in a city where painful, unresolved histories of race
and class conflict, police corruption, and interactions with a biased
legal system keep communities from safe and promising futures.
REGISTER HERE.
Praise for the Book:
“Aran Shetterly’s
incredible book offers a harrowing reminder of how our justice system
too often turns a blind eye to the perpetrators of racial violence while
denying their victims blind justice.”
—Michelle Coles, former USDOJ civil rights attorney, Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commissioner, and author of Black Was the Ink
“The full story of an atrocious, racially motivated mass shooting
still too little known after a half century. Journalist Shetterly
offers an exhaustive and authoritative rendering of the murderous
attack…Meticulously researched…Detailed, nuanced, and gripping…The most
definitive account to date of the Morningside massacre and its
subsequent political, social, and legal ramifications…A must for anyone
interested in the history of race and social structure in the United
States.”—Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
My first book, THE AMERICANO: Fighting with Castro for Cuba's Freedom,
received a starred review from Publisher's Weekly: "William Morgan, an
American who made his way to the front line of Castro's revolution in
Cuba, gets thorough and entertaining treatment in this biography.
Largely unknown in the U.S., his story is filled with the suspense of a
blockbuster war movie, offering new and insightful perspective into the
political climate of 1950s Cuba."
Carlos Eire, the National Book Award winner for his memoir, Waiting for Snow in Havana,
wrote, "The Americano is history at its best: a brilliant, fast-paced
account based on solid research that reads like a great epic novel. . . .
As engaging as it is revealing, this narrative opens up the history of
the Cuban Revolution from within as no other English-language book has
ever done."
From 2005 to 2009, I founded, edited, and wrote for
Inside Mexico. Inside Mexico became the most widely distributed
English-language periodical in Mexico, publishing long-form articles on
such topics as the history of African-Mexicans, the impact of NAFTA, and
the "third-culture" that has developed along the Mexican-American
border.
I grew up in rural Maine, studied English Literature and
Spanish Language and Culture at Harvard College, and earned an MA in
American and New England Studies from the University of Southern Maine.
Since 2003, I've collaborated with my father's arts and education
organization Americans Who Tell the Truth. I have worked primarily in media, including book publishing and internet start-ups. I've worked as a writing instructor at Aspen Words and have coached and edited many writers working to complete novels, histories, or memoirs.
Between
1993 and 2016, I lived in Costa Rica, Cuba and Mexico. Since 2016, I've
lived in Charlottesville, Virginia with my wife, Margot Lee Shetterly, author of the New York Times #1 bestseller, Hidden Figures.
REGISTER HERE.
Lots more book clubs you can sign up for
(no need to wait for the last minute):
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