On November 3, 1979, in a Greensboro, North Carolina, housing project, gunfire erupted when a group of Klansmen and Nazis responded to public challenges to "face the wrath of the people" at a Communist-sponsored anti-Klan demonstration. Eighty-eight terror-filled seconds later, four demonstrators were dead, one was dying, and nine others were wounded. All of the dead were members of the Communist Workers Party (CWP).

In Codename Greenkil, Elizabeth Wheaton goes behind the scenes of the shootings to reveal the sixteen-year history of people and events that set the stage for the tragedy and its aftermath. In her new afterword, Wheaton looks at the legacy of the shootings, focusing in particular on the survivor-initiated Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission, whose members were empaneled in June 2004 and issued their final report in May 2006.