One Year After Unite the Right, Charlottesville Shuts Out Nazis
On the first anniversary of “Unite the Right,” community members gathered at a Presbyterian church in this college town in hopes of a different ending.
KELLY WEILL
08.11.18 11:48 PM ET
One year ago Saturday, white nationalists marched on Charlottesville, Virginia waging a violent, two-day rally that injured dozens and left three people dead, including a 32-year-old woman whom a neo-Nazi hit with a car and two police officers who were killed when their helicopter crashed outside the city. On the one-year anniversary of “Unite the Right,” community members gathered at a Presbyterian church in this college town in hopes of a different ending.
This year’s August 11 was largely a one-sided affair with security heavy as the state declared a state of emergency with police and national guard out in a show of force, and white nationalist protesters instead planning to rally in Washington, D.C. on Sunday.
The church crowd, dotted with purple shirts and flowers in memory of Heather Heyer, the Charlottesville woman killed during last year’s rally, filled the pews and spilled over into the aisles of the city’s First Presbyterian Church. The approximately 500 congregants—of all races, led by Jewish, Christian, and secular faith leaders—outnumbered the estimated 400 fascists who tried to upend their city last year. Later in the evening, approximately 1,000 anti-racist demonstrators marched from the University of Virginia, the state school campus where white supremacists threatened students as they marched with lit torches during a rally last August 11.
“We’ve come with common commitment and common courage,” Karen Georgia Thompson, a local minister told congregants during the service at First Presbyterian. “We’ve come in common witness and common faith, believing the world in which we live can be different.”
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