The Unite the Right rally, also known as the Charlottesville rally or Charlottesville riots, was a white nationalist and white separatist rally that occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia, from August 11 to 12, 2017. Protesters were members of the far-right and included white supremacists, members of the alt-right, neo-Confederates, Klansmen, neo-Nazis, and various militias. Some of the marchers chanted racist and antisemitic slogans, carried semi-automatic rifles, swastikas, Nazi symbols (such as the Odal rune, Black Sun, Iron Cross, and the Valknut), Confederate battle flags, Deus Vult crosses, flags and other symbols of various past and present anti-Muslim and antisemitic groups. Within the Charlottesville area, the rally is often known as A12 or 8/12. The organizers stated their goals was the unification of the American white nationalist movement and to oppose the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee from Charlottesville's Emancipation Park.
The rally occurred amidst the backdrop of controversy generated by the removal of Confederate monuments throughout the country in response to the Charleston church shooting in 2015. The event turned violent after protesters clashed with counter-protesters, leaving over 30 injured. On the morning of August 12, Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency, stating that public safety could not be safeguarded without additional powers. Within an hour, the Virginia State Police declared the assembly to be unlawful. At around 1:45 p.m., a man linked to white-supremacist groups rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters about 0.5 miles (0.8 km) away from the rally site, killing one person and injuring 19. The alleged perpetrator, James Alex Fields Jr., was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. In December 2017, the charges were increased to first-degree murder. Attorney General Jeff Sessions described the attack as domestic terrorism, and authorities began a civil rights investigation. On June 27, 2018, Fields was charged with multiple hate crimes.
Donald Trump's remarks on Charlottesville received significant negative attention. In his initial statement on the rally, Trump did not denounce white nationalists explicitly, instead condemning "hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides". His statement and his subsequent defenses of it, in which he also referred to "very fine people on both sides", were seen by critics as implying moral equivalence between the white supremacist marchers and those who protested against them, and were interpreted by many as a sign that he was sympathetic to white supremacy.
The rally and surrounding clashes triggered a backlash against white supremacist groups in the U.S. A number of groups that participated in the rally had events canceled by universities and their financial and social media accounts closed by major companies.
Unite the Right plans to hold an anniversary rally for August 11-12, 2018, in Washington D.C. The event is expected to draw at least 400 marchers near the White House, with an unknown amount of counter protestors.
Video Unite the Right rally
Background
In the wake of the Charleston church shooting in 2015, efforts were made across the country to remove Confederate monuments from public spaces and rename streets honoring notable figures from the Confederacy. While often successful, those efforts often faced a backlash from conservatives or people concerned about protecting their Confederate heritage. The August 11-12 rally was organized to protest the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue honoring the Confederate general Robert E. Lee in Emancipation Park in Charlottesville, Virginia, which had been renamed by the city council from Lee Park in June 2016. The event was organized by Jason Kessler who had taken up the cause in March 2016 when Charlottesville vice-mayor Wes Bellamy held a press conference to call for removal of the statue. Kessler, who refers to Bellamy as "anti-white", had exposed a series of offensive tweets made by Bellamy and unsuccessfully tried to remove him from office.
Kessler also cited the renaming as a reason for the rally.
Summer rallies in Charlottesville
On May 13, 2017, white supremacist Richard Spencer led a rally in Charlottesville to protest the city's plans to remove the statue of Lee. The event involved protesters holding torches near the statue. That same night, a candlelight counterprotest took place.
The Ku Klux Klan held another rally in Charlottesville on July 8. About 50 Klan members and 1,000 counterprotesters gathered at a loud but nonviolent rally; the Klan members left the park after about 45 minutes. In opposition to the rally, the Charlottesville Clergy Collective created a safe space at First United Methodist Church, which was used by over 600 people.
Protesters
Among the far-right groups engaged in organizing the march were the Stormer Book Clubs (SBCs) of the neo-Nazi news website The Daily Stormer, The Right Stuff, the National Policy Institute, and four groups that form the Nationalist Front: the neo-Confederate League of the South, the neo-Nazi groups Traditionalist Worker Party, Vanguard America, and the National Socialist Movement. Other groups involved in the rally were the Ku Klux Klan (specifically the Loyal White Knights branch) , the Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights, Identity Evropa, the Rise Above Movement, the American Guard, the Detroit Right Wings, True Cascadia, the Canadian-based ARM (Alt-Right Montreal) and Hammer Brothers, and Anti-Communist Action.
Prominent far-right figures in attendance included National Policy Institute Chairman Richard Spencer, entertainer and internet troll Baked Alaska, former Libertarian Party candidate Augustus Invictus, former Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard David Duke, Identity Evropa leader Nathan Damigo, Traditionalist Workers Party leader Matthew Heimbach, Right Stuff founder Mike Enoch, Eric Striker of The Daily Stormer, League of the South founder and leader Michael Hill, Red Ice host and founder Henrik Palmgren, The Rebel Media commentator Faith Goldy, Right Side Broadcasting Network host Nick Fuentes, YouTube personality James Allsup, AltRight.com editor Daniel Friberg, former Business Insider CTO Pax Dickinson, Right Stuff blogger Johnny Monoxide, Daily Stormer writers Robert "Azzmador" Ray and Gabriel "Zeiger" Sohier-Chaput, Daily Caller contributor and rally organizer Jason Kessler, and Radical Agenda host Christopher Cantwell. Gavin McInnes, the leader of the self-described "Western chauvinist" Proud Boys group, was invited to attend but declined because of an unwillingness "to be associated with explicit neo-Nazis". In June, ahead of the rally, McInnes declared that "we need to distance ourselves from them", but "after backlash to the original disavowal flared-up from Alt-Right circles, the statement was withdrawn and replaced with another distancing the Proud Boys from the event yet also encouraging those who 'feel compelled' to attend".
Airbnb cancelled a number of bookings and accounts when it learned that they were being used by attendees at the rally, citing a request that users endorse a commitment to "accept people regardless of their race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or age".
Militias
Numerous armed, right-wing militia groups were present at the rally, claiming to be there to protect the First Amendment rights of the demonstrators. Groups involved included the Pennsylvania Light Foot Militia, the New York Light Foot Militia, the Virginia Minutemen Militia, the Oath Keepers and the 3 Percenters.
Counter-protesters
Those who marched in opposition to the rally were unified in opposition to white supremacy, but "espoused a wide array of ideological beliefs, preferred tactics and political goals. A large number were ordinary residents of Charlottesville who wanted to show their disdain for white supremacist groups, particularly after the Ku Klux Klan held a rally in the city on July 8." Ahead of the rally, an array of "faith-based groups, civil rights organizations, local businesses, and faculty and students at the University of Virginia" planned counterprotests. In July 2017, the ecumenical and interfaith clergy group Congregate Charlottesville called for a thousand members of the clergy to counterprotest at the rally. The Charlottesville House of Prayer also gathered at the site to pray. Groups counterprotesting included representatives from the National Council of Churches, Black Lives Matter, Anti-Racist Action, the Democratic Socialists of America, the Workers World Party, the Revolutionary Communist Party, Refuse Fascism, Redneck Revolt, the Industrial Workers of the World, the Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating Council, and Showing Up for Racial Justice. Members of the Antifa movement were also in attendance.
University and city preparations
The rally was scheduled between the summer and fall terms of the University of Virginia (UVA). On August 4, University President Teresa Sullivan sent an e-mail to students and faculty, which said, "I urge students and all UVA community members to avoid the August 12 rally and avoid physical confrontation generally. There is a credible risk of violence at this event, and your safety is my foremost concern." The University of Virginia Medical Center canceled all elective surgeries and preemptively activated its emergency response plan. Fearing possible violence, the Virginia Discovery Museum and some downtown businesses closed for the day of the rally.
Virginia Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security Brian Moran said that the state had made a number of security recommendations to the City for the event, including banning weapons and sticks; designating certain parking areas, and blocking traffic for at least ten blocks. The city, however, did not enact any of these restrictions; city manager Maurice Jones said that city ordinances made it impossible for the city to enact some of the state's suggestions.
Maps Unite the Right rally
Event timeline
Permits and court case
Jason Kessler, one of the organizers of the rally, applied for a permit from the City of Charlottesville to hold the event at Emancipation Park. The week before the event, the Charlottesville government--including Mayor Michael Signer, city council, City Manager Maurice Jones, and Police Chief Al Thomas--said they would approve the permit only if the event was moved to the larger McIntire Park. The city's leaders cited safety concerns and logistical issues associated with holding the event at Emancipation Park, adjacent to the densely populated Downtown Mall. Kessler refused to agree to relocate the rally, but the City relocated the rally anyway, a decision praised by the Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville.
Kessler, supported by the Rutherford Institute and the ACLU, sued the City of Charlottesville and Jones on First Amendment grounds in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia. On the evening of August 11, the night before the rally, Judge Glen E. Conrad granted an emergency injunction declaring that the Unite the Right rally could go forward. Conrad granted the injunction for the rally citing several factors: that Emancipation Park was the location for the statue of Robert E. Lee that was planned to be taken down and that the rally was partially for, that resources would be needed at both parks for both the rally and the counterprotesters, and that the move to McIntire Park was due to the viewpoints of the organizer and not the safety of the public. The court's decision was praised by the ACLU. Mayor Signer issued a statement saying: "While the City is disappointed by tonight's ruling, we will abide by the judge's decision. ... Chief Thomas, his team and the hundreds of law enforcement officials in our City will now turn their full attention to protecting the Downtown area during tomorrow's events."
Before the rally, counterprotesters obtained permits to gather at McGuffey Park and Justice Park, both less than a quarter-mile distant from the Emancipation Park rally. Charlottesville City Council spokeswoman Miriam I. Dickler later stated that counterprotesters did not need permits to protest the rally at Emancipation Park. Following the rally, on August 17 the executive director of the ACLU announced that "the ACLU will no longer defend hate groups protesting with firearms".
August 11
Tensions increased on the evening of Friday, August 11 when a group of white nationalists--variously numbered at dozens or around 100--marched through the University of Virginia's campus while chanting Nazi and white supremacist slogans, including "White lives matter"; "You will not replace us"; and "Jews will not replace us". The phrase "You will not replace us", originated by members of Identity Evropa in response to LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner's HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US project in New York in early 2017, has been reported by the Anti-Defamation League to "reflect the white supremacist world view that ... the white race is doomed to extinction by an alleged 'rising tide of color' purportedly controlled and manipulated by Jews". The Nazi slogan "Blood and Soil" was also used. The group was primarily composed of white men, scores wielding tiki torches. The white nationalists marched from Nameless Field to The Lawn.
At the Rotunda, the group encountered counterprotesters next to a statue of Thomas Jefferson. The white nationalists encircled the smaller group of counterprotesters at the base of the statue, and a brawl ensued. Several people on both sides were reportedly hit with pepper spray, and several people were treated for minor injuries. The white nationalists began swinging and throwing their lit tiki torches amid the chaos. Virginia State Police came to break up the brawl.
Meanwhile, clergy led a pre-planned ecumenical Christian and interfaith prayer service at St. Paul's Memorial Church on University Avenue in opposition to the Unite the Right rally.
The Cavalier Daily reported, "While waiting for rides at Nameless Field after the march, several of the 'alt-right' protesters hurled antisemitic, homophobic and misogynistic slurs at several reporters and community members asking them questions. One man asking questions was thrown to the ground and surrounded by marchers after a brief physical altercation." Mayor Michael Signer condemned the gathering, writing the following: "When I think of candlelight, I want to think of prayer vigils. Today, in 2017, we are instead seeing a cowardly parade of hatred, bigotry, racism, and intolerance march."
August 12
Protesters and counterprotesters gathered at Emancipation Park in anticipation of the rally. White nationalist protesters again chanted white supremacist and Nazi-era slogans.
Some waved Confederate flags, and others held posters targeting Jews that read "the Goyim know", using the word for non-Jews, as well as "the Jewish media is going down". Protesters also shouted racial slurs and "Jew" when Charlottesville mayor Michael Signer was mentioned, and they waved Nazi flags and signs claiming, among other things, that "Jews are Satan's children" and a chant said by Robert 'Azzmador' Ray and Gabriel Sohier-Chaput and other Stormer Book Club members stating "Gas the kikes, race war now". Dozens wore Donald Trump's red "Make America Great Again" campaign hats.
Counterprotests began with an interfaith, interracial group of clergy who linked arms, prayed, and sang songs of peace, such as "This Little Light of Mine". Later in the day, counterprotesters chanted slogans including "Kill All Nazis" and "punch a Nazi in the mouth". The armed leftist group Redneck Revolt posted on their website: "To the fascists and all who stand with them, we'll be seeing you in Virginia." Harvard professor Cornel West, who organized some of the counter-demonstrators, said that a group of "20 of us who were standing, many of them clergy, we would have been crushed like cockroaches if it were not for the anarchists and the anti-fascists who approached, over 300, 350 anti-fascists". West stated, "The neofascists had their own ammunition. And this is very important to keep in mind, because the police, for the most part, pulled back."
Virginia allows the open carrying of firearms under state law; many demonstrators were armed, including with semi-automatic weapons. This presented major challenges for police at the scene. Many of the protesters and counterprotestors carried shields, sticks, and clubs, as well as body armor and helmets. Separately at the rally, Richard W. Preston, the self-identified imperial wizard of the Maryland-based Confederate White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, was caught on video shooting a pistol at the ground in the direction of Corey A. Long, an African-American counterprotester carrying a flaming aerosol can. Preston was later found guilty of firing a weapon within 1,000 feet of a school after pleading no contest. Long was charged with misdemeanor assault and disorderly conduct; he is awaiting trial.
Twenty-year-old DeAndre Harris, a former special education instruction assistant from Charlottesville, was beaten in a parking garage in an assault that was captured by photographs and video footage. The footage showed a group of six men beating Harris with poles, a metal pipe, and wooden slabs. as Harris attempted to get off the ground. He received a head laceration requiring stitches, a concussion, a knee injury, a fractured wrist, and a spinal injury. The attack was investigated by Charlottesville police, with help from the Virginia State Police and the FBI. Four men were arrested and charged with malicious wounding, a felony, in connection with the attack on Harris. Two of them, Alex Michael Ramos and Jacob Scott Goodwin, were convicted following jury trials in Charlottesville. A third man, Daniel P. Borden, ultimately pleaded guilty. The fourth person, Tyler Watkins Davis, is awaiting trial.
Beginning in the morning, ahead of the rally's official noon start time, "protesters and counterprotesters faced off, kicking, punching, hurling water bottles at and deploying chemical sprays against one another". An estimated 500 protesters and more than a thousand counterprotesters were on the site. The Associated Press reported that "people threw punches, screamed, set off smoke bombs, hurled water bottles and unleashed chemical sprays"; some engaged in combat while "others darted around, trying to avoid the chaos". At least 14 people were injured in street brawls. Following the rally, four warrants for the arrest of white supremacist Christopher Cantwell were issued after Cantwell was charged by Virginia prosecutors with felonies related to "illegal use of gases, and injury by caustic agent or explosive". Separately, The Hill journalist Taylor Lorenz said that she was punched by counterprotestors during the violence; a man was arrested the same day. The man later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault and battery; he received a suspended jail sentence and court-ordered community service.
During the rally, a U.S. Marine and a member of the terrorist group Atomwaffen Division named Vasillios Pistolis (aka VasillistheGreek) was present and was recorded yelling "White Lives Matter" and "You will not replace us!" with his fellow protestors in the first day and in the second day he had beaten up a transgender woman named Emily Gorcenski with a modified version of the Confederate flag incorporating the neo-Nazi Schwarze Sonne (Black Sun) symbol in the centre even bragging about the beating in private chats stating "So to sum it up what I did Friday, dropped kicked that tranny that made video crying", "Today cracked 3 skulls open with virtually no damage to myself", "I drop kicked Emily gorcenski". He had also promoted the Unite the Right rally on Twitter under the account of @Gopnik_Gestapo (a reference to the infamous Gestapo) and posted an image with the image of a car running over a left-winger with the caption "Good Night, Left Side" and mocked the death of Heather Heyer calling her "a fat cunt who died of a heart attack. She wasn't even in the way of the car". He would be later court-martialed by the United States Marine Corps for disobeying orders and making false statements in June 2018.
At 11:00 a.m., the City of Charlottesville declared a state of emergency, citing an "imminent threat of civil disturbance, unrest, potential injury to persons, and destruction of public and personal property". One hour later, Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency, stating: "It is now clear that public safety cannot be safeguarded without additional powers, and that the mostly-out-of-state protesters have come to Virginia to endanger our citizens and property. I am disgusted by the hatred, bigotry and violence these protesters have brought to our state."
At about 11:40 a.m., shortly before the rally was scheduled to begin, Virginia State Police declared the gathering an unlawful assembly via megaphones, and riot police cleared the scene. Following this, "a hard core of about 100 far-right protesters" moved to McIntire Park about 2 miles (3 km) away, where they gathered to hear speakers who had been scheduled for the "Unite the Right" event.
Vehicular attack and homicide
After the aborted rally, at around 1:45 p.m., a man drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, hitting several and slamming into a stopped sedan, which hit a stopped minivan that was in front of it. The impact of the crash pushed the sedan and the minivan further into the crowd. The man then reversed the car through the crowd and fled the scene. One person was killed and 19 others were injured in what police have called a deliberate attack.
The ramming occurred at a pedestrian mall at Water and Fourth streets, about four blocks away from Emancipation Park (38°01?46.17?N 78°28?46.29?W). Heather D. Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal from Charlottesville, was fatally injured in the attack and pronounced dead at the University of Virginia's University Hospital. Video footage recorded at the scene by Brennan Gilmore showed a gray 2010 Dodge Challenger accelerating towards crowds on a pedestrian mall, hitting people and sending them airborne, then reversing at high speed, hitting more people. The moment when the car was driven into the crowd was captured on video by bystanders and in aerial video footage taken by a drone. A photographer present at the scene said the car "plowed into a sedan and then into a minivan. Bodies flew. People were terrified and screaming." Bystanders said it was "definitely a violent attack", according to The Guardian. Of the 19 injured survivors, the University of Virginia Medical Center reported that five were initially in critical condition. By the afternoon of August 14, ten patients had been discharged from the hospital, and the nine remaining patients were in good condition.
Shortly after the collision, James Alex Fields Jr., a 20-year-old from Ohio who reportedly had expressed sympathy for Nazi Germany during his time as a student at Cooper High School in Union, Kentucky, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.
Fields had been photographed taking part in the rally, holding a shield emblazoned with the logo of Vanguard America, a white supremacist organization. Vanguard America's leaders later stated he was not a member and that "The shields seen do not denote membership" as they were "freely handed out to anyone in attendance." On August 14, Fields was again denied bail. He is being held at the Albemarle-Charlottesville County Regional Jail.
National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster and several U.S. senators described the alleged ramming attack as an act of domestic terrorism, as did various commentators. Late on the night of August 12, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the U.S. Department of Justice would open a civil rights investigation into the incident; federal investigators are investigating whether the suspect "crossed state lines with the intent to commit violence". Later, Sessions said the ramming meets the definition of 'domestic terrorism' and that it was "an unacceptable, evil attack".
Heyer's mother said she wanted Heather's name to become "a rallying cry for justice and equality and fairness and compassion". Heyer's memorial service was held at Charlottesville's Paramount Theatre on August 16; Heyer's mother spoke to hundreds of mourners, asking them to honor Heyer by acting against injustice and turning "anger into righteous action".
Separate GoFundMe pages were set up for the Heyer family and for those injured in the crash; the latter was organized by the Anchorage co-chairman of the Democratic Socialists of America. The UVA Health Foundation created a fund for medical expenses of "patients at UVA Medical Center and Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital who were injured and impacted by this unwanted violence in our community".
Two motorists injured in the vehicle incident have sued the organizers of the event and the driver.
Prosecution
Fields was charged with second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding and failure to stop following an accident resulting in death, and held without bail. On August 18, Fields was charged with three additional counts of aggravated malicious wounding and two additional counts of malicious wounding. The murder charge was changed to first-degree murder on December 14. Footage introduced as new evidence for elevating the charges included a video from the Red Pump Kitchen (an Italian restaurant) on the northeast corner of 4th and Main and aerial footage from a Virginia State Police helicopter. Both videos were sealed by the lead prosecutor. The helicopter the footage was from is the same one that crashed later.
In January 2018, a court hearing was held that set November 26, 2018 as the date for Fields's trial to begin. The trial is anticipated to take three weeks.
On June 27, 2018, Fields was charged with multiple federal hate crimes, including one act which led to the death of Heather Heyer, and 28 counts of hate crimes "causing bodily injury and involving an attempt to kill" referring to the dozens of others injured during the attack.
Fatal helicopter crash
Around 4:40 p.m. on August 12, a Bell 407 helicopter owned by the Virginia State Police crashed 7 miles (11 km) southwest of Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport, killing two Virginia state troopers who were on board. Lieutenant H. Jay Cullen, 48, of Midlothian, Virginia, and Trooper-Pilot Berke M. M. Bates, 40, of Quinton, Virginia, were on the way to assist with security and public safety in the city. The crash is being investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), and Virginia State Police.
The NTSB's preliminary report did not reveal the cause of the crash, but said the aircraft did not collide with anything such as a bird or other aircraft. It noted the same particular aircraft had been in a crash in 2010, but there is no known link between that incident and this one. On September 5, a final report was expected to take 12-18 months to complete.
Reactions
Criticism of the police's handling of the rally
ACLU criticism, ProPublica report, and officials' response
In the aftermath of the rally and the car ramming, some criticized the police handling of the rally. Claire Gastañaga, executive director of the Virginia ACLU, wrote that "The situation that occurred was preventable" and the ACLU's lawsuit, which resulted in a federal court granting an injunction allowing the rally to go forward at Emancipation Park, "did not cause it". Gastañaga wrote that: "The lack of any physical separation of the protesters and counterprotesters on the street was contributing to the potential of violence. [Police] did not respond. In fact, law enforcement was standing passively by, waiting for violence to take place, so that they would have grounds to declare an emergency, declare an 'unlawful assembly' and clear the area."
On August 12, investigative news organization ProPublica published an article reporting that Virginia State Police troopers and Charlottesville police "wearing protective gear watched silently from behind an array of metal barricades" and allowed "white supremacists and counterprotesters to physically battle" without intervening. A. C. Thompson wrote that in "one of countless such confrontations", police watched passively as "an angry mob of white supremacists formed a battle line across from a group of counterprotesters, many of them older and gray-haired, who had gathered near a church parking lot. On command from their leader, the young men charged and pummeled their ideological foes with abandon. One woman was hurled to the pavement, and the blood from her bruised head was instantly visible."
Virginia officials defended the police actions. Governor Terry McAuliffe said police did a "magnificent job" and, "We were unfortunately sued by the ACLU, and the judge ruled against us. That rally should not have been in the middle of downtown: to disperse all those people from the park where they dispersed all over the city streets and it became a powder keg. We have to do a better job working with the judiciary. They need to listen to local city officials. ... I am angry that this was not moved to McIntire Park where the city of Charlottesville requested."
Charlottesville Police Chief Al Thomas said that while he had "regrets" about planning, police officers had attempted to separate protesters and counterprotesters but were unable to effectively do so, in part because "Unite the Right" participants had failed to follow a previously agreed-upon plan for entering Emancipation Park: "We had a plan to bring them in at the rear of the park. They had agreed to cooperate with the plan; unfortunately they did not follow the plan. They began entering at different locations in and around the park." Thomas also wrote: "They also chose to leave the park on a number of occasions, entering the area designated for counterprotesters, walking along the street and confronting counter-protestors." Thomas denied the implications by the Virginia ACLU that police were ordered not to intervene or make arrests, saying "There were no directives from me or any other commander to stand down or disengage" and that "there were a number of altercations throughout the area in which officers intervened".
Heaphy report
Following the rally and criticism of police handling of it, the City of Charlottesville hired Timothy J. Heaphy, the former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia, to undertake an independent review of the "Unite the Right" rally and two other supremacist events in the city. City officials also "urged residents to come forward with firsthand accounts of crimes that went ignored".
On December 1, 2017, Heaphy and his law firm Hunton & Williams LLP released the final report of their independent review. The detailed report was sharply critical of the city's handling of the rally. The report found that the Charlottesville Police Department had failed to adequately prepare for its events, had a flawed plan of response, and was not properly trained. The report also criticized actions by the Charlottesville City Council, attorneys from the city and state, the University of Virginia and the Virginia State Police. The report specifically found that:
- Law enforcement failed to break up fights or take an active role in preventing fights and were instructed not to intervene except in cases of "extreme violence". This decision represented "a tremendous tactical failure that has real and lasting consequences". Police supervisors "devised a poorly conceived plan that under-equipped and misaligned hundreds of officers. Execution of that plan elevated officer safety over public safety".
- Charlottesville police and Virginia State Police failed to operate under a unified command and did not even use the same radio channel.
- University of Virginia officials were aware of plans for a torchlit rally by white nationalists but "took no action to enforce separation between groups or otherwise prevent violence".
Organizers' responses
On the afternoon of August 13, Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler attempted to hold a press conference in front of Charlottesville City Hall, but was forced to abandon the conference after being attacked by an angry crowd. One man reportedly either punched or attempted to punch Kessler, and a woman tackled Kessler as he was trying to leave the scene. Police came to Kessler's aid and escorted him from the area. Hundreds of people shouted "shame" at Kessler and "say her name" (referring to Heather Heyer, the woman killed the day before). Before ending the short news conference Kessler stated: "I disavow any political violence and what happened yesterday was tragic." He later posted videos online in which he blamed the city for the violence and death. One man was charged with misdemeanor assault and battery for allegedly spitting on Kessler during the news conference.
Speaking in an interview on the day of the rally, David Duke called the protests "a turning point for the people of this country. We are determined to take our country back. We're going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump." Following Trump's initial comments made three days after the rally, Duke tweeted, "Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists in BLM/Antifa."
Richard B. Spencer, who was scheduled to speak at the Unite the Right event, said he was not responsible for the violence, and he blamed counterprotesters and police.
Vigils and protests
On August 13, the day following the rally, many groups organized vigils and demonstrations in a number of cities across the country with a variety of goals, including showing support for those against white supremacy, pushing for the removal of Confederate monuments, and denouncing fascism and actions and statements by the president of the United States.
In Brooklyn, demonstrators at the "Peace and Sanity" rally heard addresses by Public Advocate Letitia James and City Comptroller Scott Stringer. In Los Angeles, hundreds gathered on the steps of City Hall to condemn white-nationalist violence and honor those killed.
Thousands of anti-Trump protesters marched around Trump Tower, with many shouting "Shame, shame, shame!" and "Lock Him Up!". In response, pro-Trump counterprotesters waved American flags and yelled "Make America White Again" at protesters, a play on the Trump campaign slogan Make America great again.
Confrontations at the park continued on Tuesday, August 15, with counterprotestors demanding that a North Carolina man in Confederate uniform holding a Confederate flag and semi-automatic rifle leave the park. When police asked him if he would like to leave, he said he would and was escorted to his vehicle.
Online responses
Domain registrar GoDaddy demanded that The Daily Stormer move its website's domain to another provider after editor Andrew Anglin described the car-ramming victim in derogatory terms. The Daily Stormer then moved to Google Domains on August 14. Google canceled the site's registration for violation of its terms of service just over 3 hours after The Daily Stormer registered for the service.
PayPal suspended accounts of the right-wing extremist groups run by several of the rally organizers for violating the website's terms of service, which forbid raising money for "activities that promote hate, violence or racial intolerance".
Hacktivist collective Anonymous shut down numerous websites associated with the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups following the protests. Alt-right website Red Ice TV was also hacked. In a video statement, they claimed that their coverage and support of the rally was the cause of the cyberattack. A Discord server frequented by alt-right elements was also taken down.
Before the suspect in the vehicular ramming on August 12 was revealed, there was an online campaign by far-right outlets to identify the driver of the car used, "seemingly in hopes of proving the person was not of a right-wing political persuasion" and of blaming a liberal for the attack. The far-right news website GotNews and various other outlets misidentified an innocent man as the driver; prompting the man and his family to receive numerous death threats and advice from local police to flee their home. The family sued GotNews and its editor, Charles C. Johnson, for defamation; Johnson and the website agreed to pay the misidentified men nearly $30,000 to settle the suit in 2018. The suit continues against other "alt-right" figures who promoted the false claims.
On Twitter, a group of users identified white nationalist or supremacist marchers from photographs, publicizing at least nine names and identities. After being identified as a demonstrator at the rally, one individual resigned from his job at a hot dog stand in Berkeley, California. There was at least one reported case of mistaken identity; a University of Arkansas engineering professor received threatening messages from Twitter users who mistook him for a similar-looking man at the rally who wore an "Arkansas Engineering" T-shirt.
A short film produced by the United States War Department in 1943 entitled Don't Be a Sucker, which contains anti-racist and anti-fascist themes, "found a new audience" and became a viral online video.
According to journalist Angela Nagle, the Internet troll subculture on websites like 4Chan and Tumblr changed as a result of the rally, as many who had seen the subculture as a game confronted the reality of their alt-right beliefs.
Political responses
Before the rally, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine expressed support for free speech, but he condemned the rally.
In an address later in the day following the rally, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, flanked by Charlottesville mayor Michael Signer, and Charlottesville's police chief, directly addressed the rally participants: "I have a message to all the white supremacists and the Nazis who came into Charlottesville today. Our message is plain and simple. Go home ... You are not wanted in this great commonwealth." Signer said he was disgusted that white supremacists came to his town and he faulted President Donald Trump for inflaming racial tensions during his 2016 campaign, stating: "I'm not going to make any bones about it. I place the blame for a lot of what you're seeing in America today right at the doorstep of the White House and the people around the president."
University of Virginia Center for Politics director Larry J. Sabato, who lives on the university grounds and saw the march on August 11, said that the weekend was among the university's darkest days, stating: "I hope people will put it into context and understand that we had no control over the individuals organizing it, nor the people who showed up. What we can control is our personal and institutional reaction to it. What I saw was pure evil."
Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed called for city flags to be flown at half-staff, and indicated he favors renaming Confederate Avenue.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the violence "horrifying" and "evil" and said: "It is racist, far-right violence and clear, forceful action must be taken against it, regardless of where in the world it happens." German Justice Minister Heiko Maas similarly condemned the violence, antisemitism, and racism of the neo-Nazis at the rally.
White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon in his interview with Robert Kuttner, called the far-right "irrelevant" after Kuttner asked him about the "ugly white nationalism epitomized by the racist violence in Charlottesville and Trump's reluctance to condemn it". He quoted Bannon as saying, "Ethno-nationalism - it's losers. It's a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more ... These guys are a collection of clowns."
Religious responses
The General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, Olav Fykse Tveit, stated, "Terror and violence against peaceful people seeking justice in Charlottesville must be condemned by all ... We are proud of moral leadership by clergy and lay people standing against this promotion of racism and white supremacy."
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Orthodox Church in America, all of which are members of the World Council of Churches, each individually condemned the Unite the Right rally and the racist ideology behind it, as did The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Catholic Church.
The Rabbinical Council of America, Rabbinical Assembly and United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, and Union for Reform Judaism--representing American Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jews, respectively--all strongly condemned the white supremacist and neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville. Alan Zimmerman, president of Congregation Beth Israel in Charlottesville, recalled the day's events in a blog post: "The fact that a calamity did not befall the Jewish community of Charlottesville on Saturday was not thanks to our politicians, our police, or even our own efforts, but to the grace of God. ... And yet, in the midst of all that, other moments stand out for me, as well. ... At least a dozen complete strangers stopped by the synagogue Saturday to ask if we wanted them to stand with us."
Academic responses
According to Princeton University historian Kevin M. Kruse, there is a historical "false equivalency" precedent to blaming "both sides" in disputes over race relations. Kruse notes that segregationist politicians often equated white supremacists with the civil rights movement, condemning both the KKK and the NAACP. Various historians also questioned Trump's suggestion that the individuals calling for the removal of Confederate monuments would next demand the removal of figures like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Harvard historian Annette Gordon-Reed and others noted that Washington and Jefferson were imperfect men who are notable for creating the United States, whereas the sole historical significance of Confederate figures such as Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis is that they went to war against the United States to defend "the right of people to own other people".
Other historians noted that some wanted the Confederate monuments moved to museums where the monuments could be appropriately contextualized. Douglas A. Blackmon, senior fellow at the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs and author of a book on slavery and its aftermath in the U.S. told The Washington Post: "Trump either does not understand the history of the Confederacy or he's sympathetic to white nationalist views. ... [T]hese statues are offensive to millions of citizens that he governs. ... When you reach a point that there are hate groups that engage in terrorist attacks, that these statues are being appropriated and used in [that] way ... simply take [them] down."
Antifa was criticized by Noam Chomsky, who described the group as "a tiny faction on the periphery of the left [and] a major gift to the right, including the militant right, who are exuberant".
President Trump's statements
First statement
President Trump's remarks on Charlottesville first occurred August 12, nearly two hours after the vehicular attack, Trump spoke on camera from his vacation home in Bedminster, New Jersey, saying "We all must be united and condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Let's come together as one!" He said, "we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides." He added, "What is vital now is a swift restoration of law and order."
A spokesperson for Trump later released an addendum to his remarks on August 13, stating, "The President said very strongly in his statement yesterday that he condemns all forms of violence, bigotry, and hatred. Of course that includes white supremacists, KKK Neo-Nazi and all extremist groups. He called for national unity and bringing all Americans together." (The statement was re-drafted after an initial version released to media outlets misworded "neo-nazi" as "nephew-nazi".)
Trump's "many sides" comment was criticized as insufficient by some members of Congress, from both the Democratic and Republican parties.
Whereas members of both political parties condemned the hatred and violence of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and alt-right activists, The New York Times noted that Trump "was the only national political figure to spread blame for the 'hatred, bigotry and violence' that resulted in the death of one person to 'many sides'". The decision was reported to have come from White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon.
The Congressional Black Caucus decried what it saw as Trump's false equivalency and dog-whistle politics, saying "White supremacy is to blame." Republican U.S. Representative Justin Amash and Senators Cory Gardner, Jeff Flake, Orrin Hatch, and Marco Rubio all called upon Trump to specifically condemn white supremacists and neo-Nazis; in a tweet that was retweeted by Flake, Gardner said: "Mr. President - we must call evil by its name. These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism." Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring said: "The violence, chaos, and apparent loss of life in Charlottesville is not the fault of 'many sides'. It is racists and white supremacists."
Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), whose brother was killed in action in Europe during World War II, tweeted: "We should call evil by its name. My brother didn't give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home."
Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO) called it "domestic terrorism" in a tweet, and a few hours later Republican senator Ted Cruz wrote on Facebook, "The Nazis, the KKK, and white supremacists are repulsive and evil, and all of us have a moral obligation to speak out against the lies, bigotry, anti-Semitism, and hatred that they propagate ... [H]aving watched the horrifying video of the car deliberately crashing into a crowd of protesters, I urge the Department of Justice to immediately investigate and prosecute this grotesque act of domestic terrorism."
Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke responded by saying that Trump should "take a good look in the mirror & remember it was White Americans who put you in the presidency, not radical leftists". Other white supremacists and neo-Nazis did not object to Trump's remarks. Daily Stormer editor Andrew Anglin said "Trump did the opposite of cuck. He refused to even mention anything to do with us. When reporters were screaming at him about White Nationalism he just walked out of the room."
The NAACP released a statement saying that while they "acknowledge and appreciate President Trump's disavowment of the hatred which has resulted in a loss of life today", they called on Trump "to take the tangible step to remove Steve Bannon - a well-known white supremacist leader - from his team of advisers." The statement further described Bannon as a "symbol of white nationalism" who "energizes that sentiment" through his current position within the White House.
Political scientist Larry Sabato, playwright Beau Willimon, conservative journalist David A. French, Democratic U.S. Representative Ted Lieu and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi also called for Bannon's firing. Two former federal government lawyers, Vanita Gupta and Richard Painter, who worked in the administrations of Barack Obama and George W. Bush, respectively, called for both Bannon and Deputy Assistant to the President Sebastian Gorka to be fired.
Bannon was fired on August 18, on the heels of an American Prospect interview, in which he mockingly downplayed Trump's threats of military action on North Korea, and put down his administration colleagues and the far-right, which White House aides felt would likely provoke Trump; two unnamed administration officials claimed that Trump had informed senior aides of his decision to remove Bannon that day, while White House correspondent Maggie Haberman wrote in The New York Times that "a person close to" Bannon claimed that Bannon had submitted his resignation on August 7, but the formal announcement of his departure as chief strategist (which was to have occurred earlier that week) was delayed in the wake of the Charlottesville rally.
Gorka was fired on August 25, after disputes with other staffers and disagreements with the administration's strategy with regards to the War in Afghanistan.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus and U.S. Representative Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) called on Trump to fire Senior Advisor to the President Stephen Miller in addition to Bannon and Gorka, because of Miller's alleged white nationalist ties.
Second statement
On August 14, from the White House, President Trump said:
To anyone who acted criminally in this weekend's racist violence, you will be held fully accountable. Justice will be delivered. [...] Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the K.K.K., neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.
Trump had reportedly been reluctant to issue this statement, believing that his initial statement was adequate, but he was persuaded to speak again by White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly.
Richard B. Spencer dismissed Trump's second statement as "hollow" and he also said that he believed that Trump had not denounced either the alt-right movement or white nationalism. South Carolina Senator Tim Scott (one of three African Americans serving in the U.S. Senate, and the only Republican among the three), also said the second statement came too late; The Los Angeles Times's editorial board wrote that "Trump's first response to Charlottesville was tepid and mealy mouthed. His second was too late."
NAACP president Cornell William Brooks said Trump's second statement stuck to a "rhetorical minimum" of a condemnation, and "gave the impression that the President was trying to have his hate cake and eat it too".
Trump later tweeted: "Made additional remarks on Charlottesville and realize once again that the #Fake News Media will never be satisfied...truly bad people!"
Third statement
On August 15, Trump appeared before the media from his home at Trump Tower in New York City, to give prepared remarks about the state of the U.S. infrastructure and other economic issues. After reading his prepared statement, Trump took question from the media who asked questions mostly about the Charlottesville events. Trump defended his August 12 statement and repeated his claim that there was "blame on both sides". He also defended White House advisor Steve Bannon, and accused the media of unfair treatment of the rally?s participants. Trump said: "Not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch." Trump said that the push to remove Confederate statues was an attempt to "change history". Trump also said that there were "very fine people on both sides". Trump criticized what he called the "very, very violent ... alt-left", and falsely stated that counter-demonstrators lacked a permit. A municipal spokeswoman noted that the counter-protestors did have a permit for two other nearby parks and "counterprotesters did not need permits to protest that rally" in Emancipation Park.
In an interview published the next day, Bannon said the press conference was a "defining moment" and that Trump chose to jettison the "globalists" and align himself with "his people". He said he was "proud of how [Trump] stood up to the braying mob of reporters".
More than 60 Democratic and Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the United States Senate condemned Trump's remarks. Among those were Senators Bernie Sanders, John McCain, Tim Scott, Susan Collins, Chuck Schumer, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Jeff Flake, Orrin Hatch, Heidi Heitkamp, Claire McCaskill, Joe Manchin, Dean Heller and Tammy Duckworth, and House members Robert C. "Bobby" Scott, Don Beyer, Barbara Comstock, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Will Hurd and Gerry Connolly, as well as Ohio Governor John Kasich and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said, "The president's continued talk of blame 'on many sides' ignores the abhorrent evil of white supremacism ..." Speaker of the House Paul Ryan stated, "We must be clear. White supremacy is repulsive. This bigotry is counter to all this country stands for. There can be no moral ambiguity."
Former presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush stated that, "America must always reject racial bigotry, anti-Semitism, and hatred in all forms. As we pray for Charlottesville, we are reminded of the fundamental truths recorded by that city's most prominent citizen in the Declaration of Independence: we are all created equal and endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights. We know these truths to be everlasting because we have seen the decency and greatness of our country."
On August 16, Representatives Jerrold Nadler of New York, Pramila Jayapal of Washington State and Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey unveiled a resolution that the three House Democrats co-authored, which would censure Trump for his "inadequate response to the violence", his "failure to immediately and specifically name and condemn the white supremacist groups responsible for actions of domestic terrorism", and for employing chief strategist Steve Bannon and national security aide Sebastian Gorka despite their "ties to white supremacist movements".
Criticism of the comments also extended to the corporate world; among others, 21st Century Fox CEO James Murdoch said in an email to friends that was obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, "[W]hat we watched this last week in Charlottesville and the reaction to it by the president of the United States concern all of us as Americans and free people. These events remind us all why vigilance against hate and bigotry is an eternal obligation--a necessary discipline for the preservation of our way of life and our ideals" Murdoch also pledged a $1 million donation to the Anti-Defamation League, urging his friends to also make contributions. (Murdoch's statement drew some criticism from media columnists, including The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin and Erik Wemple, who have accused Fox News Channel for helping bring Trump to the political mainstream and its repeated defense of his administration as well as perpetuating a culture of exploiting female employees and using dog-whistle commentary on its opinion programs.)
The fallout from the third statement led to renewed calls for Trump to resign or be removed from office through either impeachment or through invocation of Section 4 of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution. In an August 15 Twitter post, Democratic House Representative Jackie Speier of California suggested that the never-before-used section of the 25th Amendment (which allows the vice president and either a majority of the cabinet or another body such as Congress to declare that a president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office) be invoked to remove Trump. However, on August 22, in an interview with Matt Lauer on the Today Show, Vice President Mike Pence passionately endorsed Trump, saying in part:
I know this president. I know his heart ... I heard it. I heard him on the day that the Charlottesville tragedy happened when he denounced hate and violence in all of its forms from wherever it comes. I heard him on that Monday, and I heard him as well on Tuesday like millions of Americans did where he condemned the hate and the bigotry that was evidenced there. He condemned the violence that was there and we'll continue to do that. We understand that criticism comes with this job, and this president has the kind of broad shoulders to be able to take it.
Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee announced on August 17, that he would introduce articles of impeachment against President Trump for his remarks in the press conference, stating that Trump had "failed the presidential test of moral leadership." Arnold Schwarzenegger made an online video criticizing Trump's statement and presented a speech condemning the racists and stating Trump should've said something like that.
In an August 18 interview with ABC's Good Morning America, Heather Heyer's mother, Susan Bro, stated that she has not "and now ... will not" meet with President Trump after hearing about his statement. Bro said, "I'm not talking to the president now. I'm sorry, after what he said about my child. It's not that I saw somebody else's tweets about him. I saw an actual clip of him at a press conference equating the protesters, like Ms. Heyer, with the KKK and the white supremacists."
The fallout from this statement also led to renewed calls for Trump to be stripped of honors he won before his presidency. Before the SummerSlam event that weekend, protesters outside the Barclays Center called for Trump's removal from the WWE Hall of Fame. Additionally, a petition to revoke Trump of an honorary law degree from Lehigh University by a recent graduate went viral following his comments, gaining over 25,000 signatures. Trump was previously stripped of an honorary degree from Scotland's Robert Gordon University in 2015. If he loses his degree from Lehigh, Trump will only have three honorary degrees remaining; two from Liberty University and one from Wagner College. A number of alumni of Liberty University announced their intentions to return their diplomas to the university in response to university president Jerry Falwell, Jr.'s continued support of Trump.
In the days following Trump's August 15 statement, the magazines The Economist, The New Yorker, and Der Spiegel ran cover art depicting Trump wearing or interacting with a KKK hood.
Additional controversy resulted from a Facebook post by Missouri State Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal in which she commented, "I hope Trump is assassinated!" in response to the president's comments. In apologizing for the remark, Chapple-Nadal said to The Kansas City Star that she posted the comment in frustration at the "trauma and despair" of Trump's statements about the Charlottesville rally. The post, which she deleted shortly after posting it but not before it was circulated online, led several state and national politicians, including U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill and House Representative Lacy Clay, to call for her resignation; State Rep. Joshua Peters also submitted a letter to State Senate President pro tempore Tom Dempsey (chairman of the Missouri Rules, Joint Rules, Resolutions and Ethics Committee) requesting that a special committee consider Chappelle-Nadal's "censure or removal" from office. Missouri State Sen. Gina Walsh (leader of the state's Senate Democratic Caucus) announced on August 22 that Chapple-Nadal had been removed from all committee assignments, commenting that the controversy had made her a "distraction" to senators.
Fourth statement
Donald Trump further defended his previous statements at a Phoenix, Arizona rally on August 22, 2017. He then accused people of "trying to take away our culture" in reference to the removal of the Confederate statues.
"Does anybody want George Washington's statue [taken down]? No. Is that sad, is that sad? To Lincoln to Teddy Roosevelt. I see they want to take Teddy Roosevelt's down too. They're trying to figure out why, they don't know. They're trying to take away our culture, they're trying to take away our history. And our weak leaders, they do it overnight."
Resignations from and dissolution of presidential advisory councils
Kenneth Frazier, the CEO of Merck, resigned from the President's American Manufacturing Council on August 14, in reaction to the President's response to the rally. Trump quickly responded by attacking Frazier on Twitter. Frazier received widespread support from major figures in politics, media and business, and commentator Keith Boykin noted that "It took Trump 54 minutes to condemn ... Frazier" but "two days of issuing equivocal statements" before denouncing the neo-Nazis and white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville. Under Armour founder and CEO Kevin Plank and Intel chief executive Brian Krzanich also resigned from the council that same day, followed by the resignations of AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, economist and former AFL-CIO deputy chief of staff Thea Lee, and Alliance for American Manufacturing president Scott Paul on August 15. The following morning, two more CEOs--Denise Morrison of Campbell Soup and Inge Thulin of 3M--announced that they would resign from American Manufacturing Council. Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon also directly criticized Trump's leadership, saying Trump "missed a critical opportunity to help bring our country together".
On August 16, after the members of the advisory councils moved to disband, Trump dissolved both councils. Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Anat R. Admati said that Trump's equivocations on white nationalist groups had "put them in a very difficult position" and caused critical damage to the president's relationship with corporate leaders.
Sixteen of the 17 members of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities resigned on August 18, in protest of Trump's response to the rally. The resigning members stated in a letter to the President, "Reproach and censure in the strongest possible terms are necessary following your support of the hate groups and terrorists who killed and injured fellow Americans in Charlottesville." Representatives for the sole remaining member, film director George C. Wolfe, stated that he, too, would be resigning and would add his name to the letter. The White House responded by saying a decision had previously been made not to renew the committee after it expired later in 2017.
In late August, eight of the 28 members of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council resigned, stating in a joint letter that Trump "threatened the security of the homeland". The letter cited Trump's response to the Charlottesville rally as one of the reasons for leaving.
Defenses of Trump
Several conservative commentators argued that Trump was being unjustly criticized by the media and left-wing political figures for him blaming both sides. Some critics argued that members of the media were excusing the violence from Antifa, a loosely affiliated group of far-left protesters. Jonah Goldberg wrote that the presence of the alt-right did not excuse Antifa from its policies that "oppose free speech, celebrate violence, despise dissent and have little use for anything else in the American political tradition". Journalists Paul Waldman and Peter Beinart criticized this argument as an ineffective tactic to defend Trump and it also stated that none of the violence from the counter-protesters justified any moral equivalency between the two sides at the rally. Beinart noted that unlike the alt-right, the members of Antifa are not practitioners of an ideology that advocates the ethnic cleansing of other racial and religious groups nor do they "celebrate regimes that committed genocide and enforced slavery", and Antifa promotes egalitarianism unlike the alt-right. Ray Arsenault of the Tampa Bay Times clarified that although there were some violent members among their ranks, the counter-protesters were mostly made up of "peaceful activists committed to nonviolence", including several clergymen and Black Lives Matter activists. Linda Qiu of The New York Times mentioned that although both sides were violent that day, only one side--the alt-right--was responsible for a deadly act of domestic terrorism. Jonathan Tobin of The Times of Israel mentioned that the explicit presence of Nazi and Ku Klux Klan imagery from the white supremacists and Fields' attack "render irrelevant" Antifa's presence at the rally. Beinart and Qiu also both noted that right-wing terrorism was far more common than left-wing terrorism.
Public opinion
Public opinion polls showed that reactions to Trump's response were overwhelmingly negative, receiving near universal disapproval from Democrats and only modest support from Republicans. A Washington Post/ABC News national poll of American adults taken in the aftermath of the rally showed that 56% disapproved of Trump's response to the violence in Charlottesville, while only 28% approved. The same survey showed that 83% of Americans said that holding neo-Nazi or white supremacist views is unacceptable, while 9% said holding such views were acceptable.
A Marist Poll of American adults showed that 52% believed that Trump's response to the violence in Charlottesville was "not strong enough". The same poll showed that 4% of Americans said they agreed with the beliefs of white nationalists, with 73% saying they disagreed, 7% having no opinion, and 15% unsure. The poll also showed that 67% believed that the fatal crash should be "investigated as an act of domestic terrorism", while 21% said it should not, and 12% were unsure.
A CBS News poll of American adults indicated that 55% of respondents disapproved of Trump's response, while 33% approved. A roughly similar split indicated that respondents found Trump's description of events to be inaccurate.
An Economist/YouGov poll of Americans showed that 42% of respondents disapproved of Trump's handling of "the situation in Charlottesville", while 27% approved and 31% had no opinion. When asked "which group ... is more likely to use violence"; 32% of respondents said white nationalists, 10% said anti-racism protesters, and 45% said "both equally likely", while 14% were unsure; Democrats were more likely to attribute violence to white nationalists, while Republicans were most likely to blame both sides equally.
A Siena College poll showed that 50% of New York residents gave Trump an "F" for his response to the violence.
UN response
In the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) August 18 report, experts recalled the "horrific events in Charlottesville of 11-12 August 2017 leading to the death of Ms. Heather Heyer, and the injuries inflicted on many other protesters, as well as the terrible beating of Mr. Deandre Harris by white supremacists". The UN Committee experts condemned "the failure at the highest political level of the United States of America to unequivocally reject and condemn" racist violence.
Consequences
Financial costs
Albemarle County, the City of Charlottesville and the University of Virginia and its medical center collectively incurred $540,000 in costs from responding to the Ku Klux Klan rally in July 2017 and the Unite the Right rally in August 2017. Costs included police overtime and other expenses, costs from the fire department and the public works department, legal fees, and fees from a crisis communications firm. Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital, a private hospital, spent over $59,000.
Beating of Harris
Six men beat DeAndrew Harris in the parking garage on the day of the rally. In 2017, three were arrested and charged with felonies in connection with the attack: Daniel P. Borden of Mason, Ohio; Alex Michael Ramos of Georgia; and Jacob Scott Goodwin, of Ward, Arkansas. The men were publicly identified by volunteer investigators working on the Internet. All three were charged with one count of malicious wounding. On May 1, 2018, Goodwin was convicted of the malicious wounding of Harris by a Charlottesville jury, which recommended a sentence of 10 years' imprisonment and a $20,000 fine. On May 3, 2018, Ramos was convicted of malicious wounding by a jury in Charlottesville. The jury recommended a six-year sentence with no fine. Borden pleaded guilty to malicious wounding on May 22, 2018, and is scheduled to be sentenced on October 1, 2018.
In January 2018, a fourth man, Tyler Watkins Davis of Florida, was also arrested and charged with malicious wounding in connection with the attack on Harris; he was extradited to Virginia to face the charge. His trial is set to begin in September 2018.
Charges against Harris
In a move that surprised both activists and the Charlottesville Police Department, Merlyn Goeschl, a local magistrate signed a warrant on October 9, 2017, without the involvement of Charlottesville police, for the arrest of DeAndre Harris on a felony charge of unlawful wounding; the charge was later downgraded to a misdemeanor assault charge. Harris, a black man, was brutally attacked inside a parking garage on Market Street in Charlottesville on the day of the rally, sustaining a spinal injury and lacerations to the head after six men hit him with a metal pipe and wooden boards.
The charge against Harris arose from the claim of Harold Crews, the state chairman of the white supremacist League of the South, that Harris had attacked him; the League and other white supremacists tried to portray the incident of Harris getting beaten as an act of self-defense for a purported attack on the white supremacists who committed the beating. Goeschl, the magistrate, said she had found probable cause to issue the arrest warrant based on Crews's claims. However, footage from the scene showed Crews trying to spear another black counterprotester, Corey Long, with the pole of a Confederate flag, prompting Harris to strike him with his flashlight.
Harris was released on an unsecured bond after he turned himself in to Charlottesville Police. In March 2018, a judge acquitted Harris, finding that it clearly could not be proven that Harris had intended to strike Crews with the flashlight and that Harris was attempting to defend his friend in the friend's tussle with Crews.
Statue removals
The violence in Charlottesville accelerated the removal of public Confederate statues from many U.S. cities. About twenty monuments were removed. In Baltimore, the city's four Confederate statues were removed on the night of August 15-16; Mayor Catherine Pugh said that she had ordered the overnight removals to preserve public safety. In Durham, North Carolina, a group toppled a statue outside the Old Durham County Courthouse; four activists were arrested in connection with the toppling. Three Confederate statues were also removed from the University of Texas at Austin in the aftermath of the Charlottesville violence.
In Lexington, Kentucky, Mayor Jim Gray asked the city council to approve the relocation of two statues from a courthouse. Proposals to relocate Confederate memorials were also made in Jacksonville, Florida and Memphis, Tennessee, among many other places.
A plaque in Montreal that was installed in a Hudson's Bay Company store commemorating Jefferson Davis's brief stay in the city by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1957 was removed following the rally, after many complaints.
Local politics
Most senior city officials in office at the time of the rally had resigned or retired a year later, or were about to. The city attorney (who had considered that the city couldn't legally stop the rally) left Charlottesville for another job, the chief of police resigned in the wake of a report concluding that the police failed to protect the public, and the city manager was set to retire by the end of 2018.
As a consequence of the rally, a left-wing political coalition became ascendant in local politics, with the aim of overturning what they considered age-old racial and economic injustice. Nikuyah Walker, one of the local activists who charged into a city council meeting days after the rally to confront the city leadership, was elected mayor in January 2018. A New York Times report in July 2018 concluded that the issue of whether the rally's violence was mainly the fault of outsiders or a consequence of local racism remained controversial in Charlottesville, and that the city remained divided between activists for change and those who would prefer to return to the status quo.
2018 anniversary rally
In November 2017, Jason Kessler, the organizer of the rally, applied for a permit to hold a rally in Charlottesville in August 2018, on the anniversary of the march. In December 2017, the city of Charlottesville denied the permit, writing that Kessler's application "likely underestimates the number of participants" and that "no reasonable allocation of city funds or resources can guarantee that event participants will be free of any 'threat of violence'". While Kessler filed suit against the city, he withdrew the suit before any ruling was made.
In June 2018, Jason Kessler's application for a "White Civil Rights Rally" was approved for August 11 and 12 by the National Park Service, though a permit has not yet been issued. The rally is to be held in Washington DC. A coalition of 18 activist groups under the collective title D.C. Against Hate plans "to counter-protest the event on a massive scale, with the aim of shutting down the rally entirely".
In popular culture
- The marketing campaign of the video game Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus was seen as containing allusions to many of the events of the rally.
- The South Park episode White People Renovating Houses was a spoof of the events of Charlottesville.
- The Eminem song Like Home referenced Heather Heyer and the Charlottesville rally in one of the song verses "If we start from scratch like a scab for scars to heal/And band together for Charlottesville/And for Heather, fallen heroes".
- Country musician Jesse Dayton's song "Charlottesville" covers the rally and the ensuing violence.
See also
- 2017 Berkeley protests
- Boston Free Speech Rally
- The Madison Square Garden "Pro-American Rally", a 1939 rally at Madison Square Garden, New York City held by the pro-Nazi organization German American Bund attended by 20,000 Bundmen that involved antisemitic and racist rheotric ending in the beating of a counter protestor named Isadore Greenbaum. The rally has been frequently compared to the march in Charlottesville.
- Angry white male
- History of the United States (2008-present)
References
External links
- Final Report of the Independent Review of the 2017 Protest Events in Charlottesville, Virginia by Timothy J. Heaphy of Hunton & Williams LLP, commissioned by the City of Charlottesville
- Charlottesville: Race and Terror, news documentary by Vice News (22 minutes)
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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