On the morning of November 3, 1979, a caravan of cars and vans carrying members of the Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi groups drove to Morningside Homes, a residential development in Greensboro, North Carolina, where approximately one hundred people were gathering for an anti-Klan demonstration.

When the caravan arrived, verbal confrontations quickly escalated into physical violence. Members of the Klan and Nazi groups opened the trunks of their vehicles and took out shotguns and high-powered ...