CASE STUDIES
Restorative Justice
* For image references, please scroll to the bottom of the page.
Author of case study: Marcela Torres Molano
Geopolitical location of space:
417 Arlington St.
Morningside neighbourhood
Greensboro, North Carolina 27406
Extant? Yes
Architect:
Original architect unknown
Start date of commission: 2004
End date: 2006. However, restorative initiatives continued taking place even when the commission’s mandate ended.
In 1979, five members of the Communist Workers Party, participating in a rally against the Ku Klux Klan in Greensboro, North Carolina, were shot to death by a group of Klansmen and neo-Nazis. In 2004, a private organization formed the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission (modeled after commissions in South Africa and Canada) with the intention to investigate the events of 1979. During the commission’s mandate, streets, public spaces, and other community sites of the city became scenarios for the manifestation and reconciliation of the population. Church rooms and auditoriums, college campuses, and the main plaza of the city have all been used in the framework of the commission’s work by citizens and community organisations.
Yes, the Beloved Community Center was the main venue for The Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Yes, public and private hearings were part of the commission’s work. As such, the spaces it used were adapted for these purposes.
Survivors, witnesses, police officers, judges, lawyers, former members of the KKK and neo-Nazi groups.
The center itself is located inside a church building (open to the public but privately owned). However, part of the commission’s work took place in public buildings and urban spaces within the city.
Sites around the city:
1. The Beloved Community center was the main venue for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. A centre that functions in the Faith Community Church building, a two-storey brick structure, surrounded by a parking lot and an open green space.
2. The Annie Merner Pfeiffer Chapel at Bennett College was the venue for the Commission Report Release ceremony on May 25, 2006.
3. In 2017, every Tuesday afternoon, community members gathered in search of healing and reconciliation in The Government Plaza
4. The Edwards Church of Northampton and the site of the massacre have also been used for reconciliation in the last decades. Even though the commission released its final report in 2006, manifestations and gathering in the streets have been happening since the day of the massacre.
From 2004 to 2006, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission was formed in the Beloved Community Center in Greensboro, North Carolina. The commission was intended as an inclusive response to the several failed prosecutions of Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party members that opened fire in a political and labor activists gathering on November 3, 1979.
Through the lenses of race, class and politics, the commission held public hearings and private interviews with survivors, witnesses, police officers, judges, lawyers, and former members of KKK and the American Nazi Party. In 2006, a final report on the causes and consequences of the 1979 event was presented to the public.
In 2017, a second initiative called Healing Tuesdays, Toward Healing Greensboro occupied the main plaza of the city. The community gathered in the public space of the Government Plaza as a reconciliation strategy. During the commission and in the years following its completion individuals and organisations have used the city, the streets, and the churches as scenarios for public gathering and reconciliation.
is an author, speaker, columnist, and podcaster in the fields of architecture and decorative arts. She is completing her MA in Art History at Concordia University, Montréal, and holds a Bachelor of Commerce with a major in Marketing from John Molson School of Business. She studied Industrial Psychology in Los Angeles, California. Sicotte is the author of two published books on design (2015, 2018) published by Les Éditions Cardinal.
is a Colombian PhD candidate in the Department of Art History at Concordia University. She has a background in architectural design and community activism and holds a master’s degree in Building and Urban Design from the Bartlett School of Architecture in London, England. Her interests focus on socially-engaged art, social movements, collaborative activism in post-conflict scenarios, collectively-produced art, and art produced in relation to the built environment.
is a PhD candidate in Humanities at Concordia University. His research focuses on spatial agency, social aesthetics, youth narratives, and graphic representations of urban memory. He has published on the relationship between children, play, and public space in Cartagena, Colombia. He has also worked as an editor on literary projects, including Territorio Fértil, which received the María Nelly Murillo Hinestroza award for Afro-Colombian literature.
is Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Architectures of Spatial Justice (Tier 2) at the Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture at McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada. Her research interests include low-income housing and participatory design, civil protest and urban design, and campus landscapes and race. Her publications include the co-edited book, Orienting Istanbul (2010) and solo-authored book, Istanbul Open City (2018).
is an artist and a professor of Art History at Concordia University. Her work focuses on women and the history of the built environment, urban landscapes, research-creation, and oral history. She has published on the spatial history of the suffrage movement, public art, gardens, and the politics of urban change. In addition to her research on the spaces of restorative and transitional justice, she is leading an oral history project on the urban memories of diverse Montrealers.
is Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre at Concordia University, Montreal (Quebec, Canada). He is also the second co-director of Concordia’s Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling. His latest publications explore listening in the context of post-conflict performances of memory. For instance, see ‘Facilitating voicing and listening in the context of post-conflict performances of memory. The Colombian scenario.’ In: De Nardi, S., Orange, H., et al. Routledge Handbook of Memoryscapes. Routledge: London. (2019), and his article ‘Not being able to speak is torture: performing listening to painful narratives’. International Journal of Transitional Justice, Special Issue Creative Approaches to Transitional Justice: Contributions of Arts and Culture. (March, 2020)
