the terror in Charlottesville, a so-called Unite the Right white nationalist rally that took place in Charlottesville this weekend, that erupted into violence, resulting in three deaths. Thousands of white nationalists descended on Charlottesville to participate in the rally on Friday night and Saturday and oppose a plan to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a city park. They were soon outnumbered by opponents, including clergy, students, Black Lives Matter activists, and protesters with the antifascist movement known as “antifa.”
Events began late on Friday, when hundreds of torch-bearing white supremacists held a surprise march on the main quadrangle of the campus of the University of Virginia, chanting “Blood and soil,” “You will not replace us,” and “Jew will not replace us.” They walked to a statue of Thomas Jefferson, surrounded a small group of counterprotesters gathered there, including a small group of students with a banner reading “Virginia Students Act Against White Supremacy.” ProPublica reports that despite intense interest from the media, police and local anti-racists, the white supremacists kept the location of their intimidating Friday night march secret until the last minute. In a Facebook post, Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer, called it a, “cowardly parade of hatred, bigotry, racism, and intolerance” and said he was “beyond disgusted by this unsanctioned and despicable display of visual intimidation on a college campus,” Signer said.
The next day, Saturday, the far-right forces, numbering between a thousand and 1,500, marched to Emancipation Park for a rally set to take place at noon. Many wore body armor and carried assault rifles and pistols, taking advantage of Virginia’s loose firearm laws. They were met by anti-racist counterdemonstrators, and fights broke out before the rally began. Witnesses report police did little to intervene.
Then, around 1:45 p.m. Virginia time, a man later identified as James Alex Fields drove his Dodge Charger into a crowd of demonstrators, then peeled away in reverse at high speed, in what many are calling an act of terror. An iconic image of the car attack featured in media around the world shows protesters flying through the air after they were hit. A local paralegal named Heather Heyer was killed in the car attack. At least 19 others were injured. Heather worked at Miller Law Group, a law firm that helps people going through bankruptcy. She had repeatedly championed civil rights issues on her social media. Her Facebook cover read, “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” A statement from Heyer’s mother on the GoFundMe page read, “She died doing what was right. My heart is broken, but I am forever proud of her.” This is her mother, Susan Bro, speaking on NBC.
SUSAN BRO: And that’s what she was doing that day, yesterday, when she was killed. She was doing that with people. She was saying, ‘Well, tell me why you’re here.’ And I know this because this is what her friends told me. And that’s what Heather’s life was all about: passion for fairness, passion for equality, passion for justice.
Two Virginia state troopers, Lieutenant H. Jay Cullen and Trooper-Pilot Berke M.M. Bates, also died on Saturday, when their helicopter crashed en route to the scene of the violence. In another incident Saturday, white supremacists were captured in a photo beating 20-year-old African-American protester De’Andre Harris, who is a hip-hop artist and assistant special education teacher at an area high school.
— source democracynow.org 2017-08-15