Virgil Lee Griffin

Virgil Lee Griffin (February 27, 1944 – February 11, 2009) was a leader of a Ku Klux Klan chapter in North Carolina who was involved in the November 3, 1979, Greensboro massacre, a violent clash by the KKK and American Nazi Party with labor organizers and activists from the Communist Workers Party at a legal march in the county seat of Guilford County. It resulted in the deaths of five marchers, including a woman.

Early life Griffin was born to Johnny and Lizzie Griffin. He had a brother John and three sisters: Geraldine, Francis, and Janie.

On the morning of the shootings, Griffin's Klansmen and American Nazis, in a nine-vehicle caravan, veered from the destination and at 11:30 drove through a group of people gathering for the noon rally. The police were not yet in place to protect the marchers, who had a permit for the event. Griffin said he told his members to go without robes and guns, but many had rifles, shotguns and handguns in the trunks of their cars.

"We had just planned to fly our American flags across the street to show them we love our country," Griffin said.

In 1979, Griffin was identified in The New York Times as Grand Dragon of the North Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. He later founded the Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. He has most recently been identified as the imperial wizard of the Mount Holly-based Cleveland Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

By the late 1990s, Griffin had suffered two heart attacks, bypass surgery, and a ruptured disc in his neck. Griffin died on February 11, 2009, at the age of 64 in Gaston Memorial Hospital located in Gastonia, North Carolina. He had been ill for some time, but his obituary did not state his cause of death.