UVA alum Bruce Kothmann, who was removed from the steps of the Rotunda in May for reading a Bible without permission, tested restrictions again in July by waiving a gay pride flag.
Bruce Kothmann
By Jonathan Haynes
Despite the controversy over the University of Virginia’s revisions to its right-to-assemble policies, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has awarded the university its highest free speech rating.
FIRE, a group that defends the constitutional rights of students and faculty in higher ed, ranked UVA as a “green-light” university, along with with 42 other universities out of the 466 it monitors around the country, ahead of “yellow light” James Madison University and “red light” Virginia State University.
“We classify schools as red, yellow, green light based on how well the First Amendment is upheld at public schools and how well any school follows its own policies,” says Robert Shibley, the executive director of FIRE. “UVA has generally done a pretty good job.”
UVA alum Bruce Kothmann stirred debate over UVA’s campus speech policies last May, after an officer removed him from grounds for reading a Bible on the steps of the Rotunda without the university’s permission.
A viral video of the stunt shows an officer calmly listing newly prohibited activities to Kothmann, who asks if “reading the Bible aloud” is included. After pausing and flailing his left arm, the officer says, “Apparently.”
The revised “time, place, and manner” policy was written by the Dean’s Working Group, a steering committee established by UVA’s then-president Teresa Sullivan after a crowd of torch-bearing neo-Nazis set upon a small group of protestors surrounding the Jefferson statue on August 11, 2017.
The policy restricts people who wish to exercise their First Amendment rights and are not UVA students, staff, or faculty to one of nine designated areas, among them Nameless Field and the McIntire Amphitheater, where they may assemble with a maximum of 25 to 50 people for no more than two hours. Non-affiliated persons must request permission between one and four weeks in advance. Violators may be banned, but are typically just removed.
Shibley doesn’t foresee any legal challenges because the policy is content-neutral and justified by a safety interest. The policy “passes constitutional muster,” he says. “But I think it’s very disappointing that the university adopted it.” Nonetheless, that didn’t prevent FIRE from giving UVA the green light because its policies don’t interfere with student expression.
UVA modeled its revisions after the University of Maryland’s time, place, and manner restrictions, which were upheld by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Kothmann, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania was visiting his alma mater last May to see his daughter, who had just completed her second year at UVA. He had read about the policy in the UVA alumni newsletter and, unable to shake it from his mind, decided to test campus enforcement.
The revisions proved controversial before their release, drawing criticism from members of the Faculty Senate Policy Committee Council. And some activists, students, and faculty had been pressuring UVA to ban specific organizations, since alt-right marchers were the perpetrators of on-campus violence August 11.
UVA banned 10 individuals involved in the torch march, but maintained that it is constitutionally forbidden from banning people or groups for ideological reasons.
“Times are changing, context is changing,” says Curry School professor Walt Heinecke. “Maybe it’s time for UVA to start legally pushing to see how far it can move that discussion.”
Critics lament the policy’s chilling effects on protest. Both Heinecke and William Keene, a professor of environmental science at UVA, point out that past on-campus protests against racial injustice, the invasion of Cambodia, and the ouster of Teresa Sullivan would not be permissible under the revised policy.
Shibley agrees that the policy could have negative consequences: “During the civil rights movement, non-students were coming on campus to engage in discussion and protests,” he says, adding that fewer interactions with the community will limit students’ exposure to different perspectives.
The policy has stirred little reaction from students, however, who are still free to protest. Student groups that are officially registered with student council may also invite an unlimited number of non-affiliated persons to grounds, but groups that are not registered, such as UVA Students United and the Living Wage Campaign, could be affected.
When the on-campus protests for the anniversary of August 11 and 12 presented an opportunity to test the policy’s enforceability, UVA ended up enacting security measures that far superseded the policy’s parameters, such as requiring clear bags, installing metal detectors and fencing around campus, and vastly restricting the plaza around the Jefferson statue, where UVA Students United and other activists had planned a protest.
But besides Kothmann, there are few known instances of people being removed for violating the policy.
And Kothmann has violated the policy several times without incident since his removal. In July, he waved a gay pride flag on the Rotunda steps and reported himself to the university counsel. After an hour without a response, he reported himself to a receptionist inside the Rotunda. “I saw you,” she said. “Do you need a drink of water?”
Outside of UVA President Jim Ryan’s inauguration on October 19, Kothmann and his daughter handed out flyers about the restrictions to several administrative officials. Many of them took one, including Ryan. On November 2, Kothmann reported himself for juggling pomegranates in the McIntire Amphitheater. Nobody responded.
Correction January 3: Robert Shibley’s name was misspelled in the original story.
UVA President Teresa Sullivan says students should have alerted the university that white supremacists were going to march on Grounds.
UVA Students United
In a Facebook Live video posted to the UVA Students United Facebook page Sunday evening, a student who was present at the Rotunda on Friday, August 11, approaches President Sullivan to ask a few questions about administrative inaction the night of the white supremacists’ torchlight march.
“Where were you Friday night? And why were you not standing with your students?” the student asks.
Sullivan says that she was “across the street, trying to get police help here” (her residence, Carr’s Hill, is across the street from the Rotunda).
When the student asks where the administration was during the torchlight rally, Sullivan points out that Dean of Students Allen Groves was present and that most administration isn’t around on a Friday night when classes aren’t in session. “We didn’t know they were coming,” says Sullivan.
“I guess I’m just curious how a group of anonymous students knew they were coming,” the student says.
“Did you tell us? Did you tell us they were coming?” Sullivan replies. “No, you didn’t. Nobody elevated it to us. Don’t expect us to be reading the alt-right websites. We don’t do that. You know, you’ve got some responsibility here too. Tell us what you know.”
“So we should have brought this information to you?” the student asks.
“Anybody who knew could have told us,” Sullivan replies, ending the conversation.
Curry School professor and community activist Walt Heinecke, who helped protect his students in front of the Jefferson statue Friday, August 11, is a former member of the Dialogue on Race Steering Committee.
John
Robinson
Walt Heinecke had planned to hold nonviolent direct action training the night before the August 12 Unite the Right rally. Instead, he ended up doing nonviolent intervention and defending UVA students from torch-carrying white nationalists in front of the Rotunda Friday night, running two counterprotests at McGuffey and Justice parks on Saturday, and contradicting in the Washington Post President Donald Trump’s assertions that those opposed to Nazis didn’t have a permit, which they did, but in any case, didn’t need.
The Curry School professor and community activist was scheduled to do the training at 9:30pm August 11 at St. Paul’s Memorial Church. He’d parked at the architecture school a couple of blocks away, and on his way to St. Paul’s, ran into some legal observers who had seen Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler and headlining alt-righter Richard Spencer go by—with unlit tiki torches.
The church was on lockdown because of reports of white supremacists in the area, says Heinecke. “Someone screamed, ‘Your students are surrounded by Nazis in front of the Rotunda!’” Heinecke recounts by phone from Northern California, where he was regrouping under the redwoods.
“I was shocked by the number of neo-Nazis,” he says. “And I couldn’t believe the police presence—I couldn’t see any.”
Heinecke says he asked Dean of Students Allen Groves where the University Police were, and Groves said he didn’t know, that maybe they were patrolling with Charlottesville police.
“The violence and the temperature kept going up,” says Heinecke. “Some of my students were there.”
They had taken the nonviolent training and stood with their backs to the Thomas Jefferson statue and their arms locked together, which meant they couldn’t throw punches and couldn’t reach for pepper spray, he explains.
He started going around the circle of what he estimates were 15 to 20 students, asking them if they wanted to leave. “They were following the rules [of nonviolent direct action].” He adds, “They were scared.”
The scene was “horrendous,” he says. “I saw a neo-Nazi throw a torch at Allen and then they started macing. I got hit with that.”
He was aware Tyler Magill, who served the next day as one of Heinecke’s marshals to keep order at Justice Park, was there. “I didn’t see him, but understand he got hit in the throat.” Magill, who also chased Kessler August 13 when he tried to have a press conference in front of City Hall, had a stroke August 15.
Heinecke says he and Groves dragged students out of the fray and over to the side. “At 10:17, I called 911.”
After his call and many of the “fascists” had dispersed, says Heinecke, “police came and threatened to arrest us all—Dean Groves and the students and me.”
University Police arrested Ian Hoffmann, of Palmyra, Pennsylvania, at the Rotunda, and he was charged with assault.
Heinecke says he’s disappointed by the lack of police presence for something that was “common knowledge,” and he doesn’t understand why the UVA community wasn’t alerted.
“Last week we got a text there was a bear cub wandering around,” he says. “Why not text that there are neo-Nazis wandering around? What about the people of color on staff who were working? What about the faculty of color working in their offices getting ready for students?” [See UVA President Teresa Sullivan’s response to a student here.]
Heinecke is on the UVA Faculty Senate, and he says he’s called for an investigation into why there was no police response sooner and why there wasn’t an alert to what he calls a “credible threat.”
That was the first day of the Unite the Right infestation.
As hellish as August 12 was for much of Charlottesville, Heinecke says the counterdemonstrations in McGuffey and Justice parks “were very successful. There was no violence in either of our parks.” His team provided food and water to counterprotesters, as well as first aid for tear gassing and contusions, including to one white nationalist “who was pretty beat up,” says Heinecke.
“We provided a respite for counterdemonstrators before they went out to defend their community,” says Heinecke.
Which brings him to his feud with President Trump, who blamed anti-fascists for the violence against the peaceful, permitted white supremacists.
“Those were people from our community who went out,” says Heinecke. “Without those people the damages would have been so much worse.”
And Heinecke does credit a heavily armed out-of-town militia: the John Brown Brigade, which stood on a corner outside Justice Park all day. “As the level of violence by Nazis and white supremacists grew, I was comforted by their presence,” he says.
Heinecke says his mission was accomplished, but as the permit holder in the parks, “It was stressful having all those people under my care.” And he says he was disappointed by police “allowing beatings to go on around town without intervention.”
But he was also heartened throughout the day when the clergy, students from around the commonwealth and the Democratic Socialists of America marched in.
Says Heinecke, “There were really a lot of positive community endeavors in the midst of all that violence.”
Members of the clergy link arms with counterprotesters in front of Emancipation Park Saturday, August 12, as alt-right groups of white nationalists arrive in waves. Photo by Natalie Krovetz
It was the day that kept getting worse. The weekend from hell. Like many of you, C-VILLE Weekly is still processing Saturday’s violation from ill-intentioned visitors with antiquated notions who now believe it’s okay to say in broad daylight what they’ve only uttered in the nether regions of the internet.
The Unite the Right rally left three people dead and countless injured, both physically and psychologically. We, too, share the sorrow, despair and disgust from being slimed by hate.
But here’s one thing we know: Despite the murder, the assaults and the terror inflicted upon this community, Charlottesville said no to hate. And the world, it turns out, has our back.
We sent six reporters and two photographers out to document the August 12 rally at Emancipation Park, the community events taking place around it and the weekend of infamy. Here’s a timeline of what we saw and what we felt. Because this? This is our town.
First the Loyal White Knights of the KKK July 8 and now the Unite the Right rally August 12. Charlottesville has become quite the magnet for white nationalists since City Council voted in April to remove a statue of General Robert E. Lee and rename two Confederate general-monikered parks. Oh, and the mayor declared the city the capital of the resistance.
But how does the alt-right differ from the KKK?
We went to the Daily Stormer, the neo-Nazi website where Andrew Anglin published a handy guide to the alt-right and the new white nationalists.
The core concept is that “whites are undergoing an extermination, via mass immigration into white countries which was enabled by a corrosive liberal ideology of white self-hatred, and that the Jews are at the center of this agenda,” writes Anglin.
So, like the Klan, the alt-white nationalists are still racist, dreaming of deporting all people of color, still anti-Semitic and anti-nonwhite immigrant, still homophobic and still loathe feminists and liberals. But this new breed is young and spends a lot of time hanging out online.
Trolling is a popular activity, as are making memes and doing things for the lulz, because there’s “a spirit of fun,” according to Anglin.
“The mob is the movement,” he writes. This hive mentality is buzzing in dark corners of the internet like Reddit and 4chan, where “the rehabilitation of Adolf Hitler and the [National Socialist German Workers’ Party] largely took place,” according to Anglin.
Here’s who’s on the bill to speak at homegrown whites-righter Jason Kessler’s August 12 march on Charlottesville (which the city announced Monday it’s moving to McIntire Park), where he gives himself third billing in the all-star, alt-right lineup. By Lisa Provence and Samantha Baars
Wikimedia Commons
Richard Spencer
Claim to fame: President of the National Policy Institute and Washington Summit Publishers, who coined the term “alt-right” and calls for a “peaceful ethnic cleansing”
Hates most: Any color except white
Major press moments: Spencer was punched in the face in the middle of an on-camera interview during the Women’s March and also had his Alexandria, Virginia, gym membership terminated for being the cause of a scene in which a woman called him a Nazi.
Local ties: The 2001 UVA grad inspired fellow alums to form Hoos Against Richard Spencer to raise money for refugee resettlement org International Rescue Committee.
Claim to fame: Founder of the alt-right media hub The Right Stuff and podcast “The Daily Shoah,” and one of the first to use the term “cuckservative”
Major press moments: He was doxxed by leftists who revealed his marriage to a Jewish woman in January. Richard Spencer and former KKK leader David Duke stood by him as he suffered major backlash from his party and “Daily Shoah” co-host “Bulbasaur,” who allegedly tweeted that Peinovich belonged in a gas chamber before deleting his account. It appears from online reports that Peinovich and his wife have cut ties.
Biggest threat to white America: Immigration
Banned from: Australia, where politicians have argued that he should not be allowed in their country.
Reason for attending Unite the Right: “Why not?”
Photo by Eze Amos
Jason Kessler
Claim to fame: Exposed African-American Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy’s years-old racist and misogynistic tweets and attempted to remove him from office, which launched Kessler into alt-white firmament.
Organization: Unity and Security in America
Rap sheet: Convicted of assault for slugging Jay Taylor in January on the Downtown Mall while collecting remove-Bellamy-from-office-petition signatures and is on probation; filed a counterclaim against Taylor that the prosecutor said video evidence did not support; and is currently facing disorderly conduct charges from the counterprotest to the May 13 tiki-torch rally with Spencer.
Best video moment: Kessler does a cereal beat-in, part of the initiation for the alt-lite Proud Boys (who insist they’re not white supremacists) in which he affirms he’s a “proud western chauvinist” and is then pummeled until he can list five breakfast cereals.
Best press moment: Kessler calls himself a journalist and covers the Spencer-led rally for the Daily Caller without informing the website he was also a speaker at the pre-torch festivities.
Quote: “Lincoln was a traitor. The entire country would be better off if the South had won the Civil War,” says Kessler at the June 25 alt-right rally in Washington, D.C.
Worst fear: White genocide
UVA grad: Oh yeah
Courtesy Paul Gordon / Zumawire
Baked Alaska
Real name: Tim “Treadstone” Gionet
Claim to fame: Former BuzzFeed personality and Black Lives Matter champion turned alt-right internet troll
Hates most: Political correctness
Banned from: GoFundMe for fundraising his trip to Charlottesville for Unite the Right
Major press moments: An alleged disinvitation to the alt-right’s DeploraBall to celebrate the president’s inauguration, for—believe it or not—bringing too much bad PR to the movement’s alt-lite sector, which disapproved of Gionet’s Nazi salutes and anti-Semitic blasts on Twitter, according to Mashable. Though he missed the ball, he eventually got back in the party’s good graces by deleting his offensive tweets and saying he misspoke.
Courtesy Southern Poverty Law Center.
Augustus Invictus
Birth name: Austin Gillespie (legally changed to Augustus Invictus)
Claim to fame: Publisher of The Revolutionary Conservative, Republican politician and former candidate for the Libertarian nomination for the Florida Senate in 2016, member of the Fraternal Order of the Alt-Knights, a “military wing” of the Proud Boys and the sergeant at arms for white supremacist group the Florida American Guard
Major press moment: Adrian Wyllie, former chair of the Libertarian Party of Florida, resigned from his position in response to Invictus’ campaign, calling him a “violent fascist and neo-Nazi,” and a champion of eugenics who “sadistically dismember[ed] a goat in a ritualistic sacrifice,” according to Politico. Invictus said he did sacrifice the animal and drink its blood during a pagan ritual in 2013, but he denies supporting eugenics.
Quoted: From a letter he wrote in 2013 cited on multiple alt-right websites: “I have prophesied for years that I was born for a Great War; that if I did not witness the coming of the Second American Civil War I would begin it myself. Mark well: That day is fast coming upon you. On the New Moon of May, I shall disappear into the Wilderness. I will return bearing Revolution, or I will not return at all.”
Rally tips for alt-righters (from the alt-right)
While Charlottesvillians are fretting about the upcoming Unite the Right rally, those coming are also taking precautions in anticipation of the “huge number of antifa that want to cause trouble, and the general cuckery of the local government,” Weev, the pseudonym for Andrew Auernheimer, writes on the Daily Stormer. He offers some steps to help the alt-whites stay safe.
• Don’t bring your usual phone because it might be stolen by antifa, or law enforcement might find incriminating data on it.
• Bring burner phones for “you and your boys.”
• Use perfect forward secrecy cryptography for person-to-person communications that can be set to erase, handy if you get subpoenaed.
• [D]on’t make racially charged statements on your event accounts. Save the small talk and hate speech for the bar.
• Disable fingerprint unlock because your finger could be held against your phone against your will or fake fingerprints could be made from booking ink.
• Avoid looking paramilitary and go for a clean-cut, polo-shirt Chad look.
• Don’t pack heat because serious charges could ensue.
• Don’t walk alone, especially as the event ends.
• Don’t talk to police.
• Have an exit strategy if everything goes to hell.
Courtesy Southern Poverty Law Center.
Christopher Cantwell
Claim to fame: Host of Radical Agenda, a right-wing radio show with episodes carrying titles such as “Defending Whiteness,” “School Sucks,” “Hating Cops Is Immature” and “Shut Up, Cancer Boy,” the latter a reference to Senator John McCain
History of: Promoting anti-police and anarchist rhetoric, according to the Anti-Defamation League, but recently moved toward the extreme right. He traded in libertarianism for the alt-right because the latter “has better memes.”
Fans say: He refuses to go anywhere he can’t carry a gun.
He says: He will be armed at Unite the Right, as will many of the event’s attendees, because,“communists have a really nasty habit of trying to make things violent and we should try really hard to avoid that because that would result in dead people,” he tells C-VILLE.
Hates most: The left “with every ounce of my being.” And members of the free press, whom he calls “lying pieces of filth” in his episode titled “Promoting Violence.”
Banned from: Streaming on YouTube
Claims rally misconceptions: “The point of it is not hate and the fact that everybody just runs to that understandably makes us angry and so we end up giving them the ammunition to call it that. …If we are going to save our goddamn country, we are going to have to work together to defeat the left and if you will not do that, then we are going to have a really serious problem.”
Courtesy Southern Poverty Law Center.
Matthew Heimbach
Claim to fame: A co-founder of the Traditionalist Worker Party, Holocaust denier and often considered to be the face of a new generation of white nationalists
Also known for: Co-chairing the Nationalist Front—an umbrella organization of about 20 white supremacist groups, including skinhead, KKK and neo-Nazi groups—alongside National Socialist Movement leader Jeff Schoep, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Hates most: Jews
Rap sheet: Sentenced to 90 days in jail in July for a disorderly conduct charge he got for allegedly screaming and yelling at Kashiya Nwanguma and repeatedly pushing her at a Trump rally in Louisville, Kentucky, in 2016. His sentence was suspended.
Quote: “We are not separate peoples fighting alone. We are all comrades in the struggle against International Jewry and the Zionist State,” from a Traditionalist Youth Network gathering in August 2014, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Signature move: The Heimbach maneuver. We’re not exactly sure what that is, but Backsass! blogger Connie Chastain Ward was pretty fired up about it.
Courtesy Southern Poverty Law Center.
Johnny Monoxide
Real name: Johnny Ramondetta
Claim to fame: Heads podcasts “Paranormies Present” and “The Current Year Tonight,” which are promoted on The Right Stuff, the media hub of fellow alt-righter and Unite the Right speaker Mike Enoch
Day job: Electrician
Hails from: Berkeley, California
Courtesy Southern Poverty Law Center.
Pax Dickinson
Claim to fame: Fired from his job as chief technology officer at Business Insider for offensive tweets in 2013. Earlier this year, he split with his WeSearchr partner and internet troll Chuck C. Johnson
Day job: Runs Counter.Fund, a crowdfunding site for the alt-right and a parallel economy
Don’t tell Matt Heimbach: Counter.Fund employs a Jew, according to Inc. magazine.
Soul mate org: Hezbollah, which he extols in Inc.
Symbol: Red hand
Precautions: While Dickinson is prepared to speak before the thousands anticipated at the Unite the Right rally, he won’t speak to a reporter on the phone because “it’s just not safe,” he writes in an email.
Banned from: Twitter
Courtesy Southern Poverty Law Center.
Dr. Michael Hill
Claim to fame: Heads the League of the South (a neo-Confederate group), which critics have dubbed LOSers.
Irony: Taught history for 18 years at historically black Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Bigger than the “black problem in the South,” according to Hill: The “Jewry” problem
Protégé: Matt Heimbach, whom he expelled from LOS for performing a Nazi salute at neo-Nazi and KKK events but welcomed back into the fold less than a year later, according to Southern Poverty Law Center. Then Heimbach left to start the Traditionalist Worker Party.
Signature meme: The triple-parenthesis echo to denote (((they))) are Jews.
Unite the Right accessory: White shields with the League of the South flag
Other attendees
National Socialist Movement Commander: Jeff Schoep
Claim to fame: Self-proclaimed premier white civil rights organization
Founded in: 1974
Seeking: Non-Semitic heterosexuals of European descent
Another word for National Socialism: Nazism
Inspiration: Adolf Hitler
Symbol: Swastika
Holocaust denier? Definitely
Kyle Chapman (Aka Based Stickman, the Alt-Knight)
Claim to fame: Busting heads at the Berkeley riot in March
Rap sheet: Suspicion of felony assault with a deadly weapon, carrying a concealed dirk or dagger, assault with a taser, assault with pepper spray March 4; 1993 felony robbery conviction in Texas; 2001 grand theft conviction for ripping off Macy’s in San Diego; 2009 conviction for felon in possession of a firearm.
Will he show? Kessler said yes a couple of months ago, but he refused to confirm attendees last week.
Merch: The Official Battle for Berkeley hoodie for $39.99
Vanguard America
Motto: “Blood and soil”
Easily confused with: American Vanguard and the National Vanguard, the latter of which was once based in Charlottesville before child porn possession charges shut down its founder. According to Heimbach, Vanguard America will be joining its white buds at the rally.
Membership requirements: Must be at least 80 percent white or of European heritage, and if you’re gay, transsexual or an adulterer, forget about getting an invitation to join.
Identity Evropa: “American-based identitarianorganization dedicated to promoting the interests of people of European heritage,” according to its Facebook page
Motto: “Only we can be us”
Symbol: The dragon eye, apparently a hot commodity, because stickers depicting it are sold out on the group’s website.
Who won’t be coming
You won’t find Gavin McInnes, founder of the Proud Boys who claims to be inclusive to all—“as long as you accept the Western world as the best”—kicking around Charlottesville on August 12, and neither will you find other members of the alt-lite, a group that distances itself from its hardcore counterpart. Members of the Warlocks Motorcycle Club, the historically violent biker gang that stood behind Jason Kessler in leather vests and doo rags at his most recent press conference, won’t be showing their faces, either, after backlash from the club’s leader. And South Carolina members of the Patriot movement, who originally scheduled a companion rally in Darden Towe Park for the same day, pulled their support and canceled the event once organizer Chevy Love realized the alt-right supports racism.
Rapture owner Mike Rodi says the mood among downtown businesses owners is somewhat fearful and that they anticipate the August 12 Unite the Right rally could be a “bloodbath.”
Eze Amos
As Charlottesville braces for an influx of alt-white nationalists, 43 business owners have demanded the city enforce its regulations for special events, pastors are calling for 1,000 faithful around the nation to stand with them and the Central Library has announced it will close August 12 for the Unite the Right rally in next-door Emancipation Park.
Organizer Jason Kessler has applied for a permit for his March on Charlottesville, but a lot of questions are unanswered about whether the five-hour demonstration from noon to 5pm to protest the removal of the statue of General Robert E. Lee is an exercise in free speech or a special event that requires insurance—and a place for protesters and counter-protesters to go to the bathroom.
City spokesperson Miriam Dickler says she expects Kessler’s permit to be approved this week, and notes that as a constitutionally protected demonstration, liability insurance is not required.
On his permit application, Kessler said 400 would attend the rally, but in other media, he’s said thousands would attend, and groups like the National Socialist Movement have RSVPed on social media.
Kessler also checked the no-amplification box on his application, but he mocked the KKK for showing up July 8 without amplification. During a press conference surrounded by his security detail, the Warlocks Motorcycle Club, he said there would be music at his event.
“Just having a musician does not make it a special event,” says Dickler.
Downtown business owners sent a letter July 27 to police, fire and parks and rec chiefs, as well as the Virginia Department of Health, saying the event poses a “significant risk to people and property” and will result in a major loss of revenue if the city doesn’t enforce its regulations.
“The mood is somewhat fearful,” says Rapture owner Mike Rodi. “We anticipate this could be a bloodbath.” A lot of businesses are weighing whether to close, and police officers have suggested doing just that to nervous proprietors, according to the letter.
“Most retailers lost $2,000 in revenues from the KKK,” says Escafé owner Todd Howard. “We’re losing money based on choices of Charlottesville administrators.”
“There are a lot of unknowns,” says Rodi. On the Saturday night after the KKK rally, his business lost $4,000, he says.
Rodi is undecided about whether Rapture will be open August 12. “If this summer hadn’t been the worst ever, it would be a good time to go to the beach,” he says. Too many weekends with people posting on Facebook to stay away from downtown have been “heartbreaking,” he says.
Congregate C’Ville issued a call for 1,000 clergy and faith leaders to join them in standing up to hate, and say nationally prominent figures like Cornel West and Traci Blackmon plan to attend.
“I am coming to Charlottesville to stand against white supremacy and bear witness to love and justice,” says West.
At a July 31 press conference, local pastors said those answering the call for direct, nonviolent action realize this is a “critical moment for our country,” says organizer Brittany Caine-Conley.
Congregate C’ville’s reverends Seth Wispelwey, Elaine Ellis Thomas and Brittany Caine-Conley want to bring in additional prayer power. Staff photo
The religious group is planning prayers throughout the August 11-13 weekend, including a mass interfaith service at 8pm August 11 at St. Paul’s Memorial Church, and 6am and noon prayers in the park.
And the clergy isn’t the only group that’s put out a call for support. Black Lives Matter is urging activists nationwide to say “#NoNewKKK” and Showing Up for Racial Justice wants supporters to #DefendCville.
The National Lawyers Guild has held legal observer training, and Legal Aid Justice Center will have a session on Protests, Police and Your Rights August 7. SURJ has a local attorney advising on Know the Process: Arrest/Court 101 August 8 and scheduled nonviolent direct action training August 10.
Kessler did not respond to C-VILLE’s inquiries about the port-a-let situation, but according to Dickler, three have been requested for the anticipated thousands who will attend the rally.
Richard Spencer, president of the National Policy Institute, evoked a little too much Nazi imagery for some of his fellow Hoos at a November 19 conference.
Photo NPI website
These days, Richard Spencer, class of 2001, is being voted least popular by his former classmates at UVA and his Dallas prep school, St. Mark’s.
Spencer, who says he coined the term “alt-right” and is president of the white nationalist National Policy Institute, has raised the ire of some UVA alums. A group called Hoos Against Richard Spencer is raising money to benefit the International Rescue Committee, which settles refugees.
“The effort was inspired by St. Mark’s fundraiser,” says Jessica Wolpert, class of 2002.
“I think the most egregious thing is that he’s a racist spouting hate,” she says. “The National Policy Institute is a white supremacist group trying to get in the mainstream.”
After the election, video emerged of Spencer at an NPI conference shouting, “Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail our victory!” with some in the crowd raising their arms in Nazi salutes.
“We felt ashamed,” says Wolpert. “We wanted to show we’re more welcoming to people than Richard Spencer. We wanted to show that UVA has a more positive face. It’s not the face of racism.”
As of December 5, the group had raised $2,655 of its $10,000 goal.
At press time, Spencer had not responded to a Facebook message. His Twitter account has been suspended.
UVA alum Richard Spencer visits Texas A&M. staff photo
Update December 7: Spencer is in the news again, sparking protests December 6 at Texas A&M. Hundreds lined up to denounce his appearance in College Station, where he was invited by a former student who rented space, not the university. The school said his views are “in direct conflict with our core values.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center calls Richard Spencer “an academic racist.” Staff photo
