This study investigates the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission (GTRC), an intervention aimed at cultivating healing, reconciliation, and promoting wellbeing among the victims and community affected by the 1979 ‘Greensboro Massacre’ in North Carolina. In 2004, non-profit and grassroots organizations launched a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address social trauma persisting from the violence. These Commissions are increasingly popular interventions promoting restorative justice and they are a primary mechanism for fostering social wellbeing after mass violence, yet their effectiveness in promoting social recovery and social welfare after conflict remains largely unexamined. This is the first Truth and Reconciliation Commission established in the United States, and the first to be operated solely by community organizations instead of a government sanctioned entity.

This research seeks to understand the GTRC's impact through the themes of truth, healing, reconciliation, and welfare. An exploratory qualitative research design was used, in which in-depth, open-ended interviews were conducted with victims of the ‘Greensboro Massacre’ who subsequently participated in the GTRC (n=17).

Respondents felt that the GTRC was successful in clarifying the causes and consequences of the violence, as well as in providing them a positive opportunity to tell their stories. Respondents were disappointed that more perpetrators did not participate in the process. Respondents displayed different orientations in how they prioritized reconciliation with the twin goal of seeking truth and justice. ‘Reconcilers’ were respondents who valued reconciliation above truth-seeking and justice, while ‘seekers’ maintained that reconciliation would be a product of achieving justice and truth. Although the GTRC did not address the material consequences of the violence on the welfare of the victims or the community, respondents raised the importance of social welfare to the overall goals of recovery from violence and reconciliation.

This study suggests that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission model can be an effective community-based participatory intervention that can be used to promote reconciliation in divided communities. However reconciliation appears to be a multi-level, long-term process. Future Truth and Reconciliation Commissions and conflict resolution interventions need to attend to the material social welfare of victims, and to the economic inequalities that exacerbate conflict. Interventions for victims of violence can be improved by understanding victims' experiences and their psychological and social needs. Future research should further evaluate the impact of the GTRC upon community.