It actually wasn't until several years after my acquaintance with that rangey artist and his conspicuous sleeping habits that I received my initial invitation to the Atlanta Prison Farm out Key Road. Well after leaving Atlanta in then-customary chaos and impulse, in mid-Nov, '79, hitch-hiking through Greensboro, N.C., unaware one baby-blue Sunday morning of what had transpired the day before, I came upon the unexpected.
The Klan, drunk and brave on a Saturday morning, the trunks of their cars well-stocked with guns and booze, their intentions well free of police scrutiny — the cops probably gave them the go-ahead if they weren't in their midst — had gunned down the young medical idealists who maintained a free clinic in the black section of the city. The fucking Kluxxers pulled up to where the doctors and nurses were staging their peaceful protest against Klan intimidation and in broad daylight, first opened their car doors and piled out, several dozen of them, then opened the trunks and pulled out their guns and simply blasted away with impugnity.
From all reports from eye-witnesses who miraculously survived, they emptied everything they had loaded. They shot without interruption or restraint. And there wasn't a cop in sight. Sounds fantastic nowadays, but it was the way it was once upon a sorry time. And Greensboro had history.
None of the Kluxxers was ever convicted. The clinicians had dared defy the Klan whose threats had been simple and constant — the phone calls in the dead of night, all anonymous, the crosses burning, dead animals nailed to trees, etc. All the worn-out tricks. There was nothing original or inventive in their intimidation. Everything those Kluxxers did was old as the caves. The healers on the other hand were wedded to racial equality and class struggle, always a progressive, unending battle. Indeed, a struggle itself as old as the caves. And these healers were clearly and totally committed to it. Literally to the death.
It was argued in court that the clinicians, who weren't wearing white coats with stethoscopes sewn to the pockets, had provoked the attacks.
And the jury was persuaded. They didn't even believe the murdered were doctors and nurses!
On the morning after the massacre then, utterly clueless, I was heading through town, positioned on the entry ramp to the interstate — quite the spectacle, thumb out, hair hanging long and free back in those days, blowing in tangles around me, black leather "peasant's cap" turned back to keep hair out of face, beard growing every whichaway (it was a free spirit too), looked like the Gardol Man, jeans as worn as my jean jacket, old boots scuffed as my face, smoked off-green lenses, wirerims, the uniform du jour back then. And I couldn't figure out why, as I stood there so harmless on such a peaceful Sunday morning, the Lord's Day by God!, with my beer can resting on the guard rail — full disclosure — assuming everybody was on the same page, enjoying the morning brightness, and me grinning at the on-coming traffic — that all those folks just moved over to the other lane. Damnedest thing. What was with these people? Couldn't they see what a beautiful day was in the offing?
"Ain't ya never seen a FREAK before!?" I yelled laughing into the traffic, flinging my freak flag behind me, (and I'll be frank, there was a lot of flag to fling), trying to reassure them with my ribald humor. My theater was free. But nobody stopped. They all just moved away…
"Ya Moron SCROTES! What century ya LIVIN' in?!" More humor. More cosmological joy. But no response. I owned my small stage but not the audience. The audience knew the news.
Until an elderly black woman with her grandchild pulled over, gave me a ride out of the city and explained the horror of the afternoon before. Wished me luck. The little girl sitting between us had been birthed by one of the doctors killed in the massacre. She remains an indispensable memory. Another coin to hold onto when needed.
(Her briefing sobered me considerably. I recall there was very little coverage of the blowout. As precious a gift as those folks gave to that community, their patients were impoverished and powerless, and the doctors and nurses, the staff of the clinic, were dismissed as outside agitators. Troublemakers. Deserved what they got!
I would return to Greensboro for a memorial march a month later. Federales watched the Klan as it lined the street down which we marched. Federal marshals on one side of the street and the Kluxxers lining opposite. The peaceful protest against Klan intimidation at last. For what it mattered.)