Annual favorite the Mock Stars Ball returns for two evenings of intentional camp paired with some serious rock chops. Local musicians combine forces to form supergroup cover bands and impersonate big-timers such as Black Sabbath, Fleetwood Mac, Green Day, Joy Division, Bruno Mars and many more in a benefit for The Shelter for Help in Emergency in honor of Whitney French.
After a three-year break when the brisk pace of touring and recording took a toll, the indie duo Japandroids announced its return. And with the release of a new record, Near to the Wild Heart of Life, in January, the Canadians are back to doing what they love best—making loud, edgy, garage rock. Brian King on guitar and David Prowse on drums share the vocal role, and escape with their audience into a world of power chords and percussion that never lets their musical speedometer dip below, say, 1,000mph.
The underlying occupation of every compelling songwriter is that of a storyteller, and few fulfill this job requirement better than Slaid Cleaves. Beginning his career in Portland, Maine, the musician attracted the attention of author Stephen King, who wrote the liner notes for Cleaves’ 2009 album, Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away. His gritty, real-life stories are free of pop-culture polish, channeled through versatile vocals that often include lilting yodels. With the release of his latest album, Ghost on the Car Radio, we can be sure he’ll be haunting the music scene for a while longer.
‘‘My book came out last year a week before the presidential elections,” says Madeline Iva, author of the fantasy romance Wicked Apprentice. “What I came away with, standing in the blasted devastation of our liberal democratic psyche, was that I’d just written a book about a woman who ends up holding all the power—and people are very nervous about it.”
The experience inspired Iva’s upcoming panel, Queens of the Damned: Women Who Write Horror, Fantasy and Paranormal Fiction, and she will lead a discussion October 28 at Barnes & Noble on how women are challenging and changing genre fiction.
“The title of this panel references that post-election moment,” Iva says. “I have to keep writing that kind of book. Young women need to see and hear about women having power, being comfortable with it, and everyone else not freaking out.”
Whether carving a path in a male-dominated industry or beating the odds to actually publish and attract readers, these women prove the power of positive action in publishing.
Elizabeth Massie, Desper Hollow
“Horror is often thought of as a ‘guy’s genre.’ It’s edgy, gritty, scary and sometimes no-holds-barred graphic,” says the two-time Bram Stoker Award winner. “I don’t begrudge my male horror writer counterparts any recognition they have rightly earned—that would be sexist. But I do know woman horror writers have a ways to go.”
Shawnee Small, The Night Kind series
“I was a goth for over 20 years, both here in Charlottesville when I did my English literature degree at UVA in the early ’90s, and also later, when I lived abroad in the U.K. during my 20s and 30s. As a fantasy author, I decided from the onset that I wasn’t going to hide my gender behind a pen name, for better or worse. …Women are still told that we’re being silly, and that our feelings are over-exaggerated, or just plain wrong. I say don’t listen. Stand by your convictions and don’t be afraid to go against what everyone else says. That’s how revolutions are started.”
Mary Behre, Tidewater series
“I had 42 agents turn down the first book in my award-winning series,” Behre says. They feared they wouldn’t be able to sell the book, which she’d written because “I’d always wanted to read books about ghosts that did more than creak the floorboards or move a lamp.” She went on to sell a two-book deal and sign contracts for more.
S.A. Hunter, Scary Mary series
Hunter writes about a high school girl who hears ghosts and wishes they’d shut up. Welcomed into the community by local romance writers, the Charlottesville-based, self-published author says that “being paid and praised for my writing is still amazing to me.”
Jodi Meadows, Before She Ignites
“I think fondly of the authors whose books I read as a teen, whose books showed me that fantastic adventures weren’t just for boys, and I want to carry on that tradition.” Meadows’ latest includes dragons, politics and a girl who did the right thing and was punished for it. “Now, as someone whose books are getting bigger, it’s my job to make sure that path includes space for marginalized authors, whose voices have been silenced throughout history.”
Tina Glasneck, Dragon’s Awakening, part of the Through the Never anthology
“Representation of different colors, beliefs and backgrounds [as a few examples] matter in fiction,” Glasneck says. “I truly believe that books help people grow. Minds are changed through great storytelling. …To me, when we stop reading, we also, as a culture, stop thinking and growing.”
By Natalie Jacobsen
“Go north!”
“Aren’t we already?”
Sunlight flickers in between towering stalks of corn, stifling heat lingers among the rows, and soft red dirt kicks up with every heart-pounding step. Dodging left, then making a 180-degree turn to the right while keeping a constant eye on the sun’s position and another on the path, I can’t afford any time to let my mind wander.
“I think we already came this way.”
“We couldn’t have. If we are here on the map…”
Minutes—hours—fly by, as do rows and rows of corn while I navigate the largest corn maze on the East Coast. Racing through more than 25 acres, it’s easy to see why Liberty Mills Farm’s maze has become a staple autumn activity in central Virginia.
For the last eight years, the Woods family has owned and operated Liberty Mills Farm, about 25 miles northeast of Charlottesville, in Somerset. Each year, the family plants 1,200 feet by 1,200 feet of corn, then designs and “carves out” an elaborate themed maze for thousands of visitors.
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Air Force and 80 years of the Douglas DC-3 being in commission as a passenger jet, thus 2017’s theme: aviation.
“Some years are easier to pick a theme for than others,” says Kent Woods. “In 2011, I already knew what the theme for 2014 would be: 1814, the anniversary of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’”
Looking at an aerial view of the maze, one can see a rocket, a Wright Brothers’ early model plane, the words “Aim High” in the middle above a hot air balloon and…
“An eagle. It all starts with an eagle,” says Evie Woods. The eagle, from wing tip to wing tip, is two football fields wide.
Huffing and puffing, I pause to hole-punch my map, adding another notch in my belt of sign posts that indicate progress. I wrinkle my nose—I’ve missed a few markers along the way—but I have to keep going forward.
“We start planting the corn in June, later than most typical corn farmers, so it’ll stay green longer during peak season,” says Kent. “We do everything by hand. Everything.”
Translation: No tractors were involved here.
“I lay the design out on pieces of paper, using X and Y coordinates,” he says. They know how many steps and rows equal a page and where to, quite literally, “draw the lines” in the dirt.
When the corn is between six and 12 inches tall, a team of four people spends about six hours carving out the maze by hand. Foregoing tractors allows them to focus on details: “You can’t dot your ‘I’s and make eagle eyes with a tractor,” Kent says.
Rounding one of the plane wing tips in the western corner of the maze, I can appreciate the expanse of the maze and the time it takes to design it. I can feel the shape of the letters as I walk through the gentle angles of the cursive type.
Yields vary from year to year, but the Woodses often sell remaining corn to local poultry farmers.
Signs remind visitors to take care around the corn—“It’s all listening!” Kent says—and to stick to rules regarding shortcuts, flashlights and littering.
Staff regularly traipses through the maze to find lost folks and help them get on the right path. “This year, we introduced a ‘panic button,’” says Evie. It’s a foldable sign, with a “You are here”-style map to peek at during frantic moments.
“I’ll find everyone else when I bring my combine out in November,” Kent jokes.
I pass by a tall clump of trees, which means I am near the center. The Woodses explain they haven’t removed them because a small Victorian-era cemetery is nestled there. Suddenly, I am grateful to be doing the maze during the daytime.
The maze is family-friendly, which means the Woodses have seen the same families return year after year, bringing small children who are now high-schoolers.
“I love hearing about complete strangers meeting in the maze,” says Evie. “People in New York City rush by you, acting like everyone is invisible. Here, people will approach anyone for help or conversation and come out as lifelong friends.”
I recognize the shape of a helicopter wheel and immediately feel a sense of relief—I am near the end. I turn left and head down the last stretch and into open air.
“Nothing beats seeing kids come running out, panting and grinning ear to ear, saying, ‘I never thought we’d make it out!’” says Kent.
There are four levels to the corn maze: an elementary section, estimated at 30 minutes to complete, a trivia-based maze, which includes a crossword puzzle, a two-hour maze that spans the majority of the field and a mystery maze, the only one that does not have a map. “For a true challenge,” Kent says.
Clutching my map, I am ready to go back in for a second round. I look to the Woodses for any words of advice.
“I will say this as politely as I can: ‘Get lost,’” Kent says.
A group of friends goes out to a secluded cabin in the woods—no other cabins within screaming distance, one of the friends claims—for a weekend of laid-back partying. As night falls and the group gets to some slightly drunken, scary storytelling, a tale about a woman who’s broken out of a psychiatric hospital becomes a bit too real.
So begins Curse of the Slasher Nurse, a new take on the classic slasher film, written, acted, directed and produced by a group of horror movie fanatics in Orange, Virginia.
Curse of the Slasher Nurse
Violet Crown Charlottesville
October 28
Dave Kerr, Amber Fulcher, Kea Raines and Josh Shifflett grew up watching 1980s flicks like Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Child’s Play and others with suspenseful, gory storylines in which psychopathic serial killers stalk and murder their victims, usually with bladed weapons. There was something appealing about the combination of feelings that these movies brought out in them, of being scared, amused and curious all at the same time.
After seeing plenty of bad slasher movies and feeling bored by current trends in the genre, the four friends decided to make their own slasher flick, one that in true classic fashion included plenty of blood, bad decisions, a little nudity and a good dose of comedy. So, they rounded up about $5,500 and some volunteer actors to film Curse of the Slasher Nurse in and around Orange.
Recent horror films like Hostel focus too much on trying to scare an audience that has already seen it all, says Kerr, who wrote and directed Slasher Nurse. These so-called “horror porn” movies are about maximum scare instead of suspense and, as a result, can come off dry in more ways than one—Kerr says that some modern horror films use too much CGI (and low-budget, bad CGI at that) while others, like the 2009 remake of the 1980 classic Friday the 13th, use too little blood.
And when there’s too little blood, the Slasher Nurse folks say there’s less room for comedy. Part of the delight of old slasher movies is the amount of blood—“there’s so much blood, blood everywhere, and if you really think about it, you wonder where all that blood is actually coming from,” says Fulcher, Slasher Nurse actor and producer. Sometimes there’s just no way all that gore came from a single severed hand.
Slasher Nurse special effects artist Raines (who also plays the titular title character) used about three gallons of fake blood, adding a little gelatin to it in some cases to make it more realistic. Fake blood is designed to splash and splatter like real blood, and it always looks better than CGI, says the longtime horror fan who’s been doing special effects for films and photography for about 10 years. Raines makes her own fake blood and for the lead character used latex, cotton balls and cotton pads, clay, paint and a variety of other supplies to create the nurse’s diseased skin mask, a severed arm, intestines, eyes, brain matter and more.
While Curse of the Slasher Nurse emulates many of its crew’s favorite horror films, it departs from the slasher tradition in one significant way: The film has an adult female killer, whereas most feature adult male killers (Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Chucky). Pamela Voorhees, Jason’s mother in Friday the 13th, is an exception.
The slasher nurse is “quite fearful,” says Fulcher. And Kerr promises creative kills, too—the nurse doesn’t murder any of her victims in the same way, he says, all in an effort to have audiences yell “Don’t open the door!” and “Look behind you!” in between handfuls of popcorn (and the occasional chuckle over cheesy acting and an excessive use of fake blood).
Producer/actor Amber Fulcher recommends films that showcase classic slasher qualities: Nightmare on Elm Street, Behind the Mask, My Bloody Valentine, Prom Night, Sleepaway Camp
Writer/director Dave Kerr suggests some movies that you may have overlooked: The Burning: A commonly overlooked movie that “stacks up well.” My Bloody Valentine: Never got the sequel it deserved…mainly because they unmasked the killer. Behind the Mask: A departure from the usual slasher archetype. Slaughter High: Another underrated film. The actor who played the killer died by suicide not long after the movie wrapped. Silent Night, Deadly Night: This takes “something loved by everyone and turns it into something horrifying,” says Kerr.
Kea Raines says keep your eyes peeled for super freaky special effects scenes in: Evil Dead (2013 remake): There are two good ones here, when Mia splits her tongue with the knife, and when The Abomination cuts himself in half with a chainsaw while the sky rains blood. Bride of Chucky: Tilly’s bathtub electrocution. The Devils Rejects: Dr. Satan rips out nurse Marcia’s throat. Psycho: Norman Bates stabs Marion Crane in the shower.
In 2013, one of the deadliest wildfires in recent history claimed 25 lives, 19 of whom were members of an elite squad of firefighters known as the Granite Mountain Hotshots. All but one lost their lives while struggling to contain the blaze, which appeared routine until wind and other factors allowed it to spread beyond all expectation. Hotshots refers to a type of specialized fire control and suppression unit; rather than putting out the fire directly, they make clearings, dig ditches and start guiding fires, all to direct the fire away from populated areas and further kindling. It’s an unforgiving job that requires incredible fitness, complete situational awareness and pure bravery.
Only the Brave
PG-13, 134 minutes
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
Only the Brave tells the story of Granite Mountain’s municipal firefighting unit, its journey to becoming fully certified Hotshots and the members’ dynamic as a team and as individuals. The two men at the center of the story are Brendan “Donut” McDonough (Miles Teller) and Eric Marsh (Josh Brolin). Marsh is a veteran of wildfire control, with ambitions to lead his crew to the status he feels they deserve. His entire life is dedicated to this idea, which can cause friction between him and his wife, Amanda (Jennifer Connelly). Marsh’s drive is more pride in his team than ego, but his singular focus on becoming the leader of a Hotshot crew leads to a lack of desire to grow and change as a person. Brolin portrays Marsh as a gruff and heroic father figure with no biological children of his own, who knows he is capable of a greater task yet is forever bound by humility. His mannerisms can be repetitive, yet, as we discover, his personality and lifestyle were carefully constructed for very specific reasons to overcome obstacles in his earlier life.
McDonough, meanwhile, has just been kicked out of his mother’s home after she’s endured his addiction and arrests for too long. The mother of his newborn daughter wants nothing to do with him, nor does he have anything to offer. His rehab is joining Marsh’s team, reconditioning his body and mind to their potential and becoming part of something bigger than himself. His character arc is somewhat predictable, but Teller breathes life and sympathy into what could have been an entirely one-note characterization of the real McDonough.
The importance of teamwork and the balance of personal responsibility with civic duty is the core of what director Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy, Oblivion, the upcoming Top Gun sequel) brings to this fact-inspired story. The men bond and overcome differences, call each other with non-work-related crises and put their faith in one another. A surprising amount of screen time is dedicated to plot threads that are only tangentially related to fighting fires or the Hotshots.
However, despite Kosinski’s good intentions, these are the portions that are the least engaging, relevant or interesting. If a viewer did not know that this is a true story going in, that these men lost their lives, they would be bored and even repulsed by the casual misogyny and cockiness that goes unremarked upon. Worst of all, a key similarity between Marsh and McDonough is relegated to a third-act twist, and treating it this way cheapens what could have been one of the most powerful dynamics between two characters this year.
Many of the performances in Only the Brave are terrific, and the sequences that show this underrecognized firefighting technique in action are fascinating. Individual scenes carry tremendous emotional impact, including the buildup to where we learn the characters’ fate. But, the wives and girlfriends are little more than vessels to recognize the men’s bravery or worry about how brave they are. The men who lost their lives that day, and those who were impacted by that disaster, deserve a movie more committed to who they were and what made them special than how they partied.
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema
377 Merchant Walk Sq., 326-5056
Blade Runner 2049, Happy Death Day, The Foreigner, Death Becomes Her, Geostorm, IT, My Little Pony: The Movie, The Snowman
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213
American Made, Blade Runner 2049, Boo 2!: A Madea Halloween, The Foreigner, Geostorm, Happy Death Day, IT, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, The Lego Ninjago Movie, Marshall, The Mountain Between Us, Same Kind of Different As Me
Violet Crown Cinema
200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall, 529-3000
Battle of the Sexes, Blade Runner 2049, Breathe, The Foreigner, IT, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, The Lego Ninjago Movie, Marshall, Professor Marston & The Wonder Women, The Snowman, Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton, Victoria and Abdul
By John Last
There’s an open secret among Charlottesville’s historians: Something is very wrong at the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society.
Under the near-singular control of an amateur historian, plagued by infighting and, now, facing eviction by the city, even some lifetime members are saying the 77-year-old society should meet its demise.
Conversations with more than a dozen current and former staff, volunteers and board members reveal an organization in deep dysfunction.
The ACHS keeps no current public record of board members or directors, though it is considered standard practice for charitable organizations. Paul Jones, until recently a listed director in the society’s State Corporation Commission filings, seemed unaware of any obligation to make public disclosures about the society.
None of the named current directors who responded to repeated requests could provide basic public documentation, such as the society’s articles of incorporation or bylaws. Will Lyster, a current director, says he does not have them, despite having sat on the board for more than a year. Several former directors stated they had never seen them.
Astonishingly, at the time of this writing, none of the current or previous directors could even name the other members of the board or remember the last time the board met in full. Ken Wallenborn, a current board member, says he could not disclose their names as he “did not want to step on toes.”
“They should release it, not me,” he says, declining to elaborate.
The ACHS has been the subject of renewed public scrutiny as its lease with the city comes up for review. Headquartered at 200 Second St. NE, across from Emancipation Park, the ACHS pays a reduced rent of $185 per year, representing a significant public subsidy.
But when the issue was brought before council on September 18, no informed director was present. Questions about the society’s poor documentation had to be answered by Lewis Martin, a real estate lawyer with limited knowledge of the organization.
“This is a mess, an absolute mess, and it’s been going on for some time,” said City Councilor Kathy Galvin.
Just a decade ago, the ACHS was a vibrant organization with more than 500 members, a newly renovated headquarters and a visible presence in the community. How the organization has come to its current point is a subject of much gossip in Charlottesville’s interconnected nonprofit community.
Privately, many former members pin the decline of the ACHS on its current president, local historian and Scottsville landlord Steven Meeks.
Asked for comment, Meeks said he was not answering questions and hung up.
Though the bylaws once called for a maximum term limit of six years, Meeks has been president of the society for almost a decade. After he led a campaign for the termination of former executive director Douglas Day, he also held that position until it was eliminated in 2013.
Day’s firing, say former board members, was the culmination of years of subpar fundraising and management. But it was also the fruit of months of mudslinging that saw Meeks level unsubstantiated allegations of theft against him, according to several former board members from that time.
“Doug came just short of being abused by Steve,” says former board member Don Swofford. “They just slandered him.”
Meeks took over the executive directorship on an interim basis, and was elected president later that year by a vote of the board. Though the bylaws at the time required it, Meeks did not seek a replacement executive director, although financial records suggest the society would have run a deficit had they staffed the paid position.
In 2011, discontent on the board was growing. Meeks was re-elected in a highly contentious election, in which he appeared at the vote with his personal attorney, Maynard Sipe, and began to rule critics out of order, according to Swofford and Bobby Montgomery, another former director and Meeks’ opponent at the time.
“Steve was inventing his own parliamentary law,” says Swofford.
Records show for the final vote, Sipe ruled out a secret ballot, and several members abstained. Sipe then became a regular fixture at board discussions, despite never holding a formal position at the society, according to meeting minutes.
In response, ACHS secretary Jarrett Millard suggested multiple amendments to the bylaws to make the president’s role more accountable. But by the end of the year, the amendments had not been passed, and the majority of the board had resigned.
By 2013, the situation had deteriorated further. A letter to the board signed by eight former members, including Millard, Swofford and Montgomery, detailed several violations of the bylaws, including the appointment of directors without a vote of the membership.
“We are writing to you today…because of our desperate concern,” reads the letter.
In response, the board changed the bylaws to remove term limits and obligations to consult with members.
In conversations with former directors, none doubt Meeks’ deep commitment to history, and many are grateful for his stewardship in returning the society to profitability after its financial reserve was shrunk by half in the 2008 recession.
“At that time, we needed the strong hand of a rigid autocratic-type leadership to bring us back from the brink of collapse,” wrote Swofford in his 2011 resignation letter. “You have taken the Society through tumultuous waters, and you have done a very good job. Now you need to step aside.”
Since that time, the society has become more insular. Membership has dropped by more than 50 percent, and fewer meetings are held.
A public spat over access to Ku Klux Klan robes with UVA professor Jalane Schmidt, together with the society’s refusal to disclose the donor of the robes, set it at odds with Charlottesville’s increasingly progressive historical mainstream.
This perception was cemented by the organization’s complete silence on the August 12 events, despite them taking place on its literal doorstep.
“I met and talked with black people in Charlottesville who said they would never darken the door [of the ACHS],” says Day, the former executive director, “because they knew what it stood for.”
Housed in a former whites-only children’s library, it has at times tried to shake its image as an old, white man’s club with exhibits on African-American history.
But in a statement to City Council, local historian Genevieve Keller said the society’s relationship with the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center had been “actually antagonistic.” Keller and the Jefferson Center did not respond to requests for comment.
“It’s a shame that we basically have a black historical society and a white historical society, but that’s the way it’s played out,” says Day.
There may be some substantial change coming. In agreeing to a conditional six-month extension of the society’s lease, city councilors inserted a requirement that one-third of the board be appointed by the city.
In addition to requirements to increase transparency and accountability that were not met in the 2013 lease, the society must demonstrate “racial and ethnic diversity” in staffing.
Currently, there is one black member of the board—local Realtor Angus Arrington, appointed in 2014.
Society members see this fight as personal.
“I think that these are bitter people,” says Wallenborn.
“I think some of the city councilors have a personal grievance,” says Jones. “None of the City Council are even members.”
“I don’t want it to die,” says City Councilor Kristin Szakos. “But I’m not the one killing it.”
Each year, UVA’s student-run Arts Board Committee invites an artist to the University of Virginia. This year, in collaboration with the visual studio arts program, the students have invited New York-based artist Ed Woodham, founder and director of Art in Odd Places, a collaborative arts festival. Woodham will give two talks this month on the significance of art in public space, and in the spring he’ll collaborate with students, artists and the community to create an Art in Odd Places festival in Charlottesville.
Woodham says he created AiOP 13 years ago as “a challenge to the paradigm of homeland security after 9/11” when public space became much more regulated. Creating art in public spaces, he says, is a way of reclaiming those spaces and recognizing their importance “within the workings of our democracy. It’s where we gather and brush shoulders and come up with new ideas despite socioeconomic status, gender, race, persuasion,” he says. “It’s where we can be together, be change-makers.”
Now, he says, it’s also become about moving art from galleries, museums and theaters to make it more accessible to everyone, regardless of education or interest. There, in those public spaces, he hopes to interrupt the daily lives of passersby, to prod them out of their routine and inspire them to notice something new.
AiOP’s past installations have included crocheted snowflakes by Crystal Gregory inserted between barbed wire on a city street fence, and a performance piece called “White Trash” by Edith Raw, in which she dressed in transparent trash bags full of plastic bottles and other human-made trash. Woodham often contributes performance art to AiOP with whimsical and sometimes elaborate costumes that warrant a double take such as a Sasquatch-like suit or an all-white moving statue costume with a towering headdress.
In a 2014 TEDx Talk Woodham gave in Brooklyn’s Gowanus neighborhood, he said, “In public space art can be shared and explored with a more fully democratic audience. And there it opens up the potential and the possibilities of creativity and communication.”
Three years later, he still feels that way. “It’s certainly a time to rethink the status quo,” he says. “…it might be a piece of art that will make you see. It activates the space and activates you because things are different.”
The UVA Arts Board Committee had already selected Woodham when Charlottesville’s public spaces became the epicenter of debate about history, racism, violence and free speech this summer. Woodham says that after August 12, Charlottesville’s festival, AiOP: MATTER, “became a whole new project.” It’s an opportunity, he says, “for the community of Charlottesville to weigh in on what they think this project should be. We’re listening to the community, both artists and non- artists—changemakers—on what they think this project should be.”
His talks this month, as well as the design and execution of the festival in the spring, offer the opportunity to re-examine our public spaces and experience them through a new creative lens.
On Saturday afternoon, Tanesha Hudson set up a lunch buffet in a conference room on the top floor of the Central Library on Market Street. A few dozen people spooned mac ’n’ cheese and other dishes onto disposable plates and sat at folding tables to eat.
Hudson planned the meeting, a sort of citizens committee, she says, for the Charlottesville community to discuss how to “start holding the city more accountable for the way things turned out” the weekend of August 12. But only a handful of community members were in attendance—they were outnumbered by members of independent militia and other Three Percent and American patriot movement groups, who drove in from out of town to attend the meeting.
Hudson began by talking about her gratitude for the militia’s presence on August 12, noting that at one point, when white supremacists were beating counterprotesters with flag poles, it was the militia, not the police, who stepped in to help. She said she was skeptical of the militia at first, cussed them out, even, but since that weekend, she’s been in touch with George Curbelo, commanding officer of the New York Light Foot Militia, and better understands his group’s intentions. When Curbelo heard about this meeting, Hudson says, he asked if he and other militia members could attend.
One community member stood to echo Hudson’s gratitude for protection on that day. A second community member voiced his skepticism over the militia groups’ defense of free speech and said he figured that they were here to defend Richard Spencer’s right to speak, too. A third community member asked the militia groups to understand why Charlottesville is frightened by them and their presence in town.
Curbelo’s New York Light Foot Militia is one of the private military groups named in a lawsuit filed on October 12 by the University of Georgetown law school’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection on behalf of the city, several downtown businesses and neighborhood associations. The lawsuit asserts, among other things, that the presence of private armies significantly heightens the possibility of violence; that the rally organizers solicited private militias to attend the rally, held group-wide planning calls and circulated an instructional document called General Orders.
Because of the lawsuit, Curbelo and others are not allowed to discuss the details of the pre-planning or their own experiences of the day. But on Saturday, they sought to explain what the militias and American patriot groups stand for.
In a prepared statement, Anthony Hitchcock of the Virginia Minutemen Militia said free speech stops at violence. “We worked to keep the peace between the right and the left. We did everything within the parameters of the law to keep it peaceful…our only regret is not better keeping the peace,” he said, adding that members of his group are not white supremacists and do not condone racism or white supremacy.
In a phone interview Monday, Curbelo explained that his group and others are part of the American patriot movement, which seeks to uphold citizens’ Constitutional rights, including the right to assemble, the right to free speech and the right to bear arms. Militia groups, Curbelo says, are a subcategory of that movement.
Curbelo says his group’s intention is to facilitate conversations within communities, and sometimes that means creating a physical buffer between two opposing groups until initial friction dissipates and people start talking. That’s what these militia groups were in Charlottesville to do on August 12, but “it became so overwhelming that the only thing we could do was pick people up off the floor,” Curbelo says.