“Nobody drives into a city with guns because they love someone else’s business that much. They do it because they’re hoping to shoot someone.” ~ TV host Trevor Noah regarding Kyle Rittenhouse

The Kyle Rittenhouse verdict late last year in the Kenosha, WI killings of two unarmed men is still disturbing to me. But this verdict of “not guilty” is not unique.

Back in the early 70s, I was working as a management engineering consultant with mills close to Greensboro, North Carolina. I was in and out of the town, which I liked. Despite its civil rights history in the 1960s, I thought that it was relatively progressive compared to many of the other deep South towns I had worked in. Surprisingly, it even had a gay bar that a buddy and I mistakenly wandered into one night.

That’s why I was so surprised and upset about what happened on November 3, 1979. It will be 50 years since the Greensboro massacre in which five far left peaceful demonstrators (including two UNC physicians and a medical student) were murdered by the Klan and Nazis. And then, incredibly, the killers were set free by a local jury, cleared of all charges.

Subsequently, the City has acknowledged the lack of police presence and enforcement that could have prevented the altercation. And the City lost a civil lawsuit. But those doctors were still dead and the killers free.

I thought those ugly days were behind us, especially with the election of a black president in 2008. How wrong can a person be?

We received the Kyle Rittenhouse jury verdict late last year. Like the Nazis and KKK folks in Greensboro, he was inexplicably acquitted. Apparently, some of the same idiotic, misguided logic was used in arriving at the verdict. Rittenhouse, armed with a semi-automatic rifle, convinced the jury that he was afraid of being killed by the two unarmed protesters … just like the heavily armed KKK members were afraid of the unarmed Doctors that they killed in cold blood in the streets of Greensboro.

Jason Lackowski, an armed right winger with Rittenhouse that night in Kenosha, stated that he hadn’t fired his gun that night because “there was no need” (https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/05/us/kyle-rittenhouse-trial-friday/index.html). And he was correct. There was no need for anyone to fire their gun.

But undeputized seventeen-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse wanted to dress up and play soldier/cop. So, his foolish Mommy then drove him to Kenosha from his home in Illinois so he could join other right-wing vigilantes. Once there, he got an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle from a buddy, marched directly into the middle of a civil rights protest, shooting two unarmed men to death and wounding a third.

Rittenhouse was also an extremist, hanging around with the right-wing Proud Boys. And a video exists showing him talking about wanting to shoot people who were looting a drug store (https://www.cnn.com/2021 /10/31/us/kyle-rittenhouse-trial-judge-bruce-schroeder/index.html ).

Of course, Kenosha County Circuit Court Judge, Bruce Schroede, Schroeder would not let the above be discussed during the trial, although it clearly showed Rittenhouse’s state of mind at the time of the shootings. Instead, Schroeder ruled that the two unarmed men (Rosenbaum, Huber) who were shot and killed by Rittenhouse could be referred to by the defense as “looters” or “rioters.” However, the prosecution could not call them “victims,” even though these two were unarmed.

In conclusion, it’s obvious that we learned little from the Greensboro miscarriage of justice, which seems to have just faded into history. In Kenosha, once again a right-wing vigilante got away with an obvious crime due to a biased judge and legal system.

Jack Bernard is the former Director of Health Planning for Georgia. He has been on the Board of two Georgia county Boards of Health.