A quick search revealed no reports from local television news of last weeks events in Charlottesville or the solidarity marches that followed. Fortunately, the District also has reporters who routinely imbed with the activists and organizers at these events. Here is reporting from two of them.
One Dead After Car Plows into Anti-Racist March in Charlottesville
Written by John Zanga
DC Media Group
Charlottesville, Va. — Anti-fascist and anti-racist counterprotestors confronted a planned white nationalist gathering in downtown Charlottesville on Saturday. Multiple angry clashes between groups in the morning resulted in many injuries.
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency and Virginia State Police moved in to end the protest. The Virginia National Guard was deployed and began patrolling Charlottesville.
But, in the early afternoon, a silver Challenger driving at high speed plowed through a march of anti-racist counterprotestors forming on 4th Street, tossing several people into the air like rag dolls before ramming into the rear end of another car. It appeared the car was driven deliberately into the crowd, then reversed and sped backwards.
One person was killed and 19 people were injured.
Charter said that moments after the car backed up, medics were on the scene helping the inured. He was shaken up by the incident.
As many as 30 right-wing groups, led by Alt-Right personality Richard Spencer and accompanied by known supremacist David Duke, rallied at Emancipation Park over city plans to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
The clashes erupted almost from the start of the permitted protests, which began at 10 a.m. Elements from the KKK, Neo-Nazis and the Alt-Right, were met at every turn by about 1,000 counterprotesters.
Mace and tear gas was sprayed with bottles, sticks and smoke grenades thrown by White Nationalists toward Antifa. Antifa returned volleys as White Nationalists waded into the Antifa to attack them with sticks and smoke grenades.
Police formed lines between two rows of barricades, separating Nationalists from counterprotesters. But for an unknown reason police pulled back as more Nationalists arrived, marching in a column down Market Street to confront Antifa. It was at this point that the confrontations saw their most bloody moments.
White supremacists have descended on Charlottesville since City Council voted to take down a statue of General Lee in an effort to remove Southern Heritage symbols of the Civil War. On Friday night, Neo-Nazis carried torches through the Grounds of the University of Virginia, chanting Nazi Germany slogan “Blood and Soil.” They attacked, beat and maced anti-racist protestors. Conflict also broke out when anti-fascists confronted White Nationalists at the Lee statue.
Update: A police helicopter which had been monitoring the protests crashed following the dispersal. Initial reports are that two died in the crash.
DC Remembers Charlottesville with march from WWII Memorial to Confederate statue by MPD
written by Luke
DC Independent Media Center
On the 13th of August, DC area residents protested the Nazi outrages in Charlottesville, VA. What began as a medium size march from the WWII Veterans Memorial to the White House mushroomed into a huge march from the White House past Trump Hotel to the Albert Pike (Confederate) statue by MPD. https://archive.org/details/DCCharlottesville8132017540p
Yes, DC has it’s very own statue commemorating a man who loved slavery and the Confederacy so much he moved there from the north to become a Confederate general. A similar statue of Robert E Lee in Emancipation Park in Charlottesville, VA has sparked a controversy over its pending removal blocked by a court. This has been the excuse for ever-larger KKK and Nazis rallies there that culminated in the death of one counterprotester and serious injuries to 19 more on August 12, 2017.
One demand of the protesters here in DC is that a staute commemorating slavery and murder be removed. This should be done before it becomes a magnet for neo-Nazi torchlight parades and terrorist attacks. Oddly, two videographers were nearly run down by a car driving on the sidewalk near 7th st about a half hour after this DC protest ended, but preliminary indications are this incident was only a “normal” drunk driver rather than another terrorist attack.
The deliberate and deadly, ISIS-style vehicle attack on anti-Nazi protesters in Charlottesville by comparison cannot be called anything other than terrorism and murder. All that hate came from somewhere. There seemed to be a consensus in the streets that it comes right from the top. The crowds in DC responded to Trump Hotel with massive boos and chants of “Shame shame shame,” holding Trump himself responsible for the river of hate that has inundated the US since he began his campaign.
In nearby Alexandria, VA, protesters marched on the home of notorious (and notably punched) neo-Nazi leader Richard Spencer. The IWW showed up there with their flags and remembering Heather Heyer, though DC IWW reports that (contrary to earlier rumors) she was not an IWW member. Richard Spencer hid on his roof, with just his cellphone camera peeking over the side.
Video of the massive DC marches for Charlottesville Includes bonus footage from Charlottesville providing 1 min synopsis(0:31 to 1.38)
