Correcting The NYTimes: Nelson Johnson's Obituary

It heartened me to hear that The New York Times was planning an obituary of Reverend Nelson Johnson. And a positive take on the brilliant organizer’s life in the nation’s largest newspaper was something to celebrate. And, believe me, one of the first reactions I had when I read it was, “Man, obits are hard to write.” How do you encapsulate the long life of a person-of-action in a few hundred words when I’d agonized over what to leave out of a 421 page book?! And, yet, there were mistakes in the obituary and errors of omission that seemed just too important to leave uncorrected. When examining the coverage of the Greensboro Massacre, it’s remarkable to me—after 45 years—how timid most writers still are about mentioning the complicity of law enforcement in the November 3, 1979 murders. (I hope to write a post only on this in the future.) And this despite the regular coverage of police brutality and the acknowledged, quotidian, ongoing problem of law enforcement bias. Nor did the obituary understand the degree to which Greensboro’s civil society has rallied to correct the historical record. Most importantly to me, however, was that the NYTimes obit didn’t seem to understand Reverend Johnson’s significance beyond Greensboro. Nelson Napoleon Johnson’s work as an activist had a national impact. So I wrote a piece and am grateful to Common Dreams for publishing it. Read what I wrote here.