After his perjury charge was dismissed, Jason Kessler accused Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Tracci of trying to do a “political hit job.”
Eze Amos
Jason Kessler didn’t waste any time addressing the media outside the courthouse March 20 when a judge abruptly dismissed a perjury charge against him during the trial.
“[Robert] Tracci is trying to do a political hit job,” he said to the cameras and microphones, adding that he and other attendees of August 12 rally he organized, including “Crying Nazi” Christopher Cantwell, have been targeted by the Albemarle commonwealth’s attorney. “This was an attempt to undermine my credibility so I can’t testify about the city of Charlottesville and their sabotage of that rally that got people hurt. And no one on any side should have gotten hurt.”
Kessler was accused of lying under oath at the local magistrate’s office following a January 2017 altercation with another man on the Downtown Mall. Defense attorney Mike Hallahan made a motion to strike the charge against his client immediately after resting his case, arguing that the prosecutor did not prove that the alleged crime took place in Albemarle County, and that the burden to establish venue is on the commonwealth.
Tracci, who could be heard asking his legal team if they had “any ideas” just minutes before the discharge, made a brief statement outside the courthouse that he was “obviously disappointed,” and said in an email that his office is examining potential steps to take.
“We count on our commonwealth’s attorney to do the best job he can and sometimes it’s not enough,” said local attorney Timothy Read, who was observing the trial. He said the perjury charge can’t be brought against Kessler again because of double jeopardy. “I’m very surprised that it happened here in a case with this much attention. …I think it’s an unfortunate outcome.”
Local legal expert Dave Heilberg says that while all trial attorneys make blunders, the rookie mistake won’t bode well for Tracci in the next election.
“Head prosecutors who are mostly office administrators before showing up to grandstand for their big cases sometimes make these errors,” he says. “Voters don’t forget these unforgivable mistakes.”
The perjury charge stemmed from a Downtown Mall scuffle when Kessler asked passersby to sign a petition to remove then Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy from office for offensive tweets he made before being elected. Community members saw it as a racial attack when the right-wing blogger put his hit out on the only African-American city councilor, and Kessler testified that many people would curse him over their shoulder when he asked for their signature on his document.
But when Jay Taylor approached and took the petition from Kessler, reading it for a few moments and calling Kessler a “fucking asshole,” the man on trial for perjury said he perceived a threat.
Video evidence submitted in court showed Kessler slugging Taylor upside the head, but Kessler’s sworn statement to the magistrate at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail was that Taylor had assaulted him first, by “violently shaking” his arm when he took the petition from Kessler and making “face to face” contact.
In the defense’s opening argument, Hallahan, who wore a long, pink tie, portrayed the result of Taylor’s alleged assaultive behavior by making a swing with his right arm and exclaiming, “BAM!”
Hallahan persisted that Kessler acted in self defense, and that his client’s written account of what happened, made under oath to a magistrate, was true. On the witness stand, Kessler admitted that “shaking,” wasn’t the best word to use and that the “face to face” contact he referred to consisted of Taylor standing about a foot away. In April, Kessler pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault of Taylor.
Jason Kessler addresses the media after flipping off a C-VILLE reporter and pleading guilty to assaulting Jay Taylor in April 2017. Staff photo
Tracci showed a Newsplex clip of Kessler being interviewed on the day of that guilty plea, in which he said, “Man to man, yell in a man’s face and expect to get punched in the face.”
During the perjury trial, Taylor testified he was walking on the mall with his dog and a cup of coffee when he saw Kessler, with whom he was acquainted, and asked to read the petition, even though he wasn’t a city voter.
Taylor said he realized that the petition wasn’t supposed to make anything better, that it was all about creating chaos, and that’s when he handed it back and called Kessler the expletive. After Taylor got clobbered, he said Kessler apologized, asked him not to call the cops and said he was just having a “bad day.”
“Yeah, I was having a bad day, clearly,” Kessler testified. “I try to be [a nice guy], [but] I don’t always succeed.”
It took nearly three hours to seat a jury of 10 men and three women out of a pool of 60 potential jurors, because more than a dozen told the judge that they were familiar with the organizer of the Unite the Right rally and Hallahan elected to individually interview them.
“I will admit that I have a preconceived idea about whether he committed perjury,” said one unnamed juror during her interview. “I believe he lied.”
She was dismissed. Another woman who was relieved of her duties said she knew Kessler as the guy who wanted to remove the city’s Confederate war memorials of General Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.
“She might be the only person in Albemarle County who thinks Mr. Kessler wants to take the statue down,” said Hallahan after she left the room, and there was a brief moment of unity, where the defendant’s supporters and opponents shared one thing: a nervous giggle.
Dozens of community activists showed up in support for DeAndre Harris outside Charlottesville General District Court on March 15, the day before his trial, in which he was found not guilty of assaulting a white supremacist with a Maglite on August 12. Photo by Eze Amos
As DeAndre Harris’ attorney played video footage of a group of white supremacists beating him to the ground in the Market Street Parking Garage on August 12, Harris sank back in his chair and closed his eyes.
Today, he was on trial in Charlottesville General District Court for an encounter that happened just moments before the bloody beatdown, when he was walking down Market Street and testified that “everybody just stopped.”
Harris said he turned around to monitor the situation, and that’s when he says he witnessed League of the South member Harold Crews “driving his flag into Corey [Long].”
Long—who is now widely recognized as the tall, muscular black man who appears to be wielding a homemade flamethrower at a white supremacist in an August 12 photo that went viral—is one of a few people Harris attended the Unite the Right rally with. Harris said he had seen people using flagpoles as weapons throughout the day.
So when he saw the tip of one poking into his friend’s torso, that’s when he took a Maglite out of his backpack and swung it in the direction of the flagpole. His attorney, Rhonda Qualiana, said you could hear the flashlight hit the pole in the video.
Harris came to the rally carrying a bag full of water and a white towel to cover his face in the event that tear gas was dispersed, he testified. An unknown white man dressed in all black had handed him the Maglite and a face mask for protection just prior to the incident.
After he swung it, Crews—the North Carolina man who brought the assault charge against Harris—claimed he was struck on the left cheek, which left two abrasions.
While Judge Robert Downer said he believed Crews’ testimony, he said, “I cannot find beyond a reasonable doubt that [Harris] intended to hit Mr. Crews.”
And though the judge formerly instructed several rows of activists in the courtroom that outbursts were prohibited, they erupted in applause and whistles when he found Harris not guilty of the misdemeanor.
As part of a campaign community activists are calling “Drop the Charges,” members of groups such as Black Lives Matter, Congregate Charlottesville, Showing up for Racial Justice and Solidarity Cville have demanded that Commonwealth’s Attorney Joe Platania acquit Harris, Long and another black man, Donald Blakney, from the charges they’ve faced as a result of protecting the community from neo-Nazis on August 12.
Outside the courtroom after the verdict—where, not long before, Unite the Right rally organizer Jason Kessler made his rounds through the screaming crowd, exchanging middle fingers with activists and filming a police officer who smacked his arm and caused him to drop and allegedly break his phone—activists chanted, “Being black is not a crime,” after the verdict.
Among a sea of signs in support of Harris, the 20-year-old who was working as a lead counselor at the local YMCA and a teacher’s aide at Venable Elementary School, one stood out: “Venable families stand with Dr. Dre.”
Quagliana said Harris would not be speaking to the media or the activists.
“Your enthusiasm and support has meant everything to DeAndre,” she said to the crowd of approximately 75 people. “It’s almost hard for me to not be emotional.”
The attorney said the day was also very emotional for her client, who has been searching for the woman who initially gave him aid on the steps of the NBC29 building where he lay after he was removed from the parking garage on August 12. Quagliana said he wants to thank her.
“DeAndre and his parents want peace in this community,” she added.
Black Lives Matter-Charlottesville organizer Lisa Woolfork said the acquittal of a victim whom white supremacists tried to turn into an assailant was a cause for celebration.
“Our community is much safer because of this verdict,” she said.
Close up of a burning tiki torch on a blurred colored background.
Candles in, tiki torches out
Just ahead of Jason Kessler’s March 6 lawsuit against the city complaining that City Manager Maurice Jones unconstitutionally denied his permit for a two-day August 12 anniversary rally—Jones also denied five other applicants’ permit requests for the weekend—City Council updated its event permit regulations February 20.
45-day notice if street closure requested, 30 days if not
Prohibited: Open flames, except for hand-held candles for ceremonial events
Prohibited (partial list): Pellet guns, air rifles, nunchucks, tasers, heavy gauge metal chains, poles, bricks, rocks, metal beverage or food cans or containers, glass bottles, axes, skateboards, swords, knives, metal pipes, pepper or bear spray, mace, bats, sticks, clubs, drones and explosives
Prohibited: Dressing like cops, military or emergency personnel
Small group exception: Up to 50 citizens may spontaneously demonstrate without a permit
Highlights from Kessler’s complaint:
The city couldn’t guarantee a clear path to enter Emancipation Park for his fellow Lee statue-loving protesters.
The permit denial is based on crowd size, but there’s plenty of room in the one-acre park, which could hold as many as 20,000 people “cheek to jowl.”
Because of the city’s “misconduct,” fewer people will attend and a “reduced crowd will dilute” Kessler’s message.
The city’s denial was based on Kessler’s viewpoint and violates his First and 14th Amendment rights.
Quote of the Week: “You’re more likely to be killed by @timkaine running mate @HillaryClinton than you are by an AR-15.” —A March 8 tweet by failed gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart, who stopped by Charlottesville March 10 during his campaign for Senate.
How much is that puppy in the browsing window?
Attorney General Mark Herring says his consumer protection team continues to receive complaints from people “who thought they were buying an incredibly cute puppy from an online breeder, only to find out it was a scam and the dog didn’t exist.” Red flags for this scam include stock photos, exotic or designer breeds for cheap, and poorly made websites that include misspellings and grammatical errors, he says.
Life and then some
Cathy Rothgeb
A jury recommended a 184-year sentence for Cathy S. Rothgeb, the former Orange County youth softball coach found guilty on March 12 on 30 of 34 charges, which include forcible sodomy, aggravated sexual battery and object sexual penetration of two former athletes. The alleged molestations began in the ’90s, when one victim testified that she was 9 years old.
Assault and battery
A Western Albemarle High School teacher has been placed on administrative leave after he was arrested for a physical altercation with a student on February 16. Oluwole Adesina, a 53-year-old Crozet resident, faces up to a year in jail or a $2,500 fine for the misdemeanor assault and battery charge.
Green acres
Hogwaller Farm, a nine-acre development with 30 apartments and an urban farm, has been proposed near Moores Creek along Nassau Street, according to the Daily Progress, which reported March 11 that developer Justin Shimp submitted a zoning amendment pre-application last summer to ask Albemarle officials to change the light-industrial designation to rural so he could plant seven acres of “really dank bud.”
New hire
Roger Johnson. Courtesy of Albemarle County
Albemarle County announced its hiring of economic development director Roger Johnson from Greenville, North Carolina on March 7, for a job that’s been open for over a year. The last person to hold it lasted for 19 months.
Guilty plea
Joshua Lamar Carter, 27, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on March 12 for firing a gun at city police officers in 2016. In a plea agreement, he entered an Alford plea to one charge of attempted second-degree murder and pleaded guilty to shooting a gun in a public place and illegally possessing a firearm as a felon.
A headline we’re starting to get used to: Another August 12 lawsuit
Georgetown Law’s Civil Rights Clinic filed a federal defamation lawsuit March 13 on behalf of a Unite the Right rally counterprotester who claims to be a victim of fake news conspiracies.
Brennan Gilmore’s cell phone footage of the deadly car attack on Fourth Street went viral on August 12, and “Gilmore was contacted by media outlets to discuss his experience and soon became the target of elaborate online conspiracies that placed him at the center of a ‘deep-state’ plot to stage the attack and destabilize the Trump administration,” says a press release from the law group.
Now he’s suing defendants Alex Jones, Infowars, former Congressman Allen West and others for “intentional infliction of emotional distress” and “mobilizing an army of followers to pursue a campaign of harassment and threats against him.” The lawsuit seeks punitive damages and compensation for Gilmore’s alleged reputational injuries and emotional distress.
“From Sandy Hook to Pizzagate to Charlottesville, Las Vegas and now Parkland, the defendants thrive by inciting devastating real-world consequences with the propaganda and lies they publish as news,” says Gilmore. “Today, I’m asking a court to hold them responsible for the personal and professional damage their lies have caused me, and, more importantly, to deter them from repeating this dangerous pattern of defamation and intimidation.”
After being pepper sprayed, spat on, and called racial slurs, a detective testified that Donald Blakney admitted to taking his anger out on a man he associated with the white supremacists and neo-Nazis in town on August 12.
Charlottesville man Donald Blakney, who is accused of maliciously wounding an Arkansas resident on August 12, had his charge certified to the grand jury in Charlottesville General District Court on March 8.
Eric Mattson, who testified he’s a member of a Constitutionalist group called the Highwaymen, said he traveled 16 hours to the Unite the Right rally to protect the First Amendment. And in doing so, he said Blakney beat him over the head with a stick so hard that it snapped, and he blacked out for a second.
“My brain rattled,” he told judge Robert Downer. “I was just walking, minding my own business.”
Detective David Stutzman testified that in his interview with Blakney, who wasn’t charged until January, the 51-year-old said he was on his way to the Downtown Mall to panhandle on August 12 when he observed the Unite the Right rally. After being pepper sprayed by someone in a white polo, slapped and called racial slurs, the detective said Blakney admitted to taking his anger out on a man he associated with the white supremacists and neo-Nazis.
Mattson said Highwaymen are neutral. In the year that he’s been a member of the organization, he’s been to about 10 similar rallies to support free speech.
He was unarmed and carrying a wooden flagpole with a rolled up American flag when someone attacked him from behind, he testified. He then saw Blakney run off into the crowd, and when he got back to his hotel room that night, he saw footage of himself being socked on the news.
Defense attorney David Baugh argued that his client hit Mattson against the head in the heat of passion, which means it legally can’t be defined as malicious, but the judge declined to lessen the charge to unlawful wounding.
“I don’t know why this is being prosecuted,” Baugh said. “That guy’s a classic Klansman. He’s got the beard, he’s got the look. …He doesn’t know the Constitution from a pack of bubblegum.”
The judge agreed that Commonwealth’s Attorney Joe Platania had ample probable cause for the case to move forward.
Outside the courtroom, members of multiple activist groups encircled an emotional Blakney.
At a rally three days before the hearing, the same groups demanded the prosecutor drop the charges against Blakney and two other African-American men accused of similar crimes on August 12.
The activists say “it is both unjust and unacceptable to criminally prosecute these men for defending themselves and their community against white supremacist terror,” according to a press release.
“It has long been a guiding principle of this office that those who perpetrate violence in our community must be held accountable and those who have violence inflicted upon them must be protected,” Platania said in a statement. “I plan to continue to adhere to that principle and the pending prosecutions referenced above will move forward. I wish to thank the public for their thoughtful and important input.”
Jacob Goodwin, one of four men charged in the beating of DeAndre Harris August 12, was found guilty of malicious wounding.
Charlottesville police
An Arkansas man whose own attorney admits he kicked DeAndre Harris in the Market Street Garage August 12 filed two motions to exclude evidence of the brutal beating because he claimed the serious injuries to Harris happened before the kicks.
Jacob Goodwin, 23, of Ward, Arkansas, was arrested in November and charged with malicious wounding, a felony that carries up to 20 years in prison and a minimum five-year sentence.
His attorney from Blairs, Elmer Woodard, spent most of the March 7 hearing showing video to Judge Rick Moore to establish that assailants such as Tyler Davis, the 49-year-old Florida man arrested January 24, and others identified as “Salmon Shirt” and “White Helmet” were the ones who seriously injured Harris, and that Harris’ broken wrist and head gash that required staples happened before Goodwin came on the scene to deliver a few kicks to his stomach and legs.
Harris “attacked Mr. Goodwin and Mr. Goodwin defended himself,” said Woodard. He contended that a list of Harris’ injuries was “unbiased testimony from medical specialists,” and did not include any bruises on his stomach. “That’s not malicious wounding,” he said. “This shouldn’t come into evidence against him because it happened before he came in.”
Moore denied Woodard’s motion to exclude that evidence and said it would be up to a jury to determine whether Goodwin caused Harris’ injuries. “This is a melee. He’s clearly kicked by your client multiple times,” said Moore. “I can’t find this evidence irrelevant.”
Prosecutor Nina Antony said the commonwealth is proceeding on a theory that the assault was “concert of action by a mob” that Goodwin was part of, even if Harris’ injuries were caused by others.
“You can’t say it’s concert of action” when it’s people defending themselves,” argued Woodard.
Moore denied Woodard’s motions “based on the videos I’ve seen,” he said. Goodwin is scheduled for a jury trial April 30.
Woodard is also defending other white supremacists arrested in August 12 weekend events, including Baltimore Confederate White Knights of the KKK imperial wizard Richard Preston, charged with firing a gun after an unlawful assembly was declared in Emancipation Park, and “Crying Nazi” Chris Cantwell.
Woodard also represents Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler in his March 6 civil suit against the city for denying his August 12 anniversary permit.
Georgetown Law School’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection says all states have the power to prevent militia-like activity. Photo by Eze Amos
New research shows that all 50 states can legally restrict private militia and paramilitary activity at events such as the summer’s deadly Unite the Right rally, according to the University of Georgetown Law School’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection.
The legal organization, which filed a lawsuit on behalf of the city last October against 25 groups and individuals that allegedly engaged in unlawful militia-like activity on August 12, claims the independent militiamen and women, many with AR-15s slung over their shoulders, made tensions boil at the rally.
In its litigation, ICAP aims to prohibit the defendants from returning to Virginia to engage in the type of behavior seen over the summer, and during a February 8 press conference, senior litigator Mary McCord announced a set of new tools every state can use.
“Violent conduct is not protected by the First Amendment,” she said.
Aside from independent groups such as the Pennsylvania and New York light foot militias present at Unite the Right, McCord says several of the white supremacist groups also fall into that category because of their “militaristic battle behavior,” combat-type helmets and reliance on bats, batons, clubs, sticks and reinforced flag poles for protection.
But perhaps this could have been prevented due to already existing clauses, statutes and prohibitions, which could be used proactively to impose restrictions during an event’s permitting process to reduce the possibility of violence while protecting the right to free speech and peaceable assembly.
“All in all, what this research found is that all 50 states have one of these,” McCord said.
On October 28, the League of the South —a white nationalist group named in ICAP’s lawsuit—planned two White Lives Matter rallies in Shelbyville and Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
Adam Tucker, an assistant city attorney for Murfreesboro, said the folks at ICAP immediately reached out with suggestions for restrictions the locality could impose to prohibit violent paramilitary activity like that seen in Charlottesville.
Tucker said city officials were able to write a prohibition of paramilitary activity into the rally’s permit, and on the day of the planned rallies, though members of the league showed up at their first planned rally in Shelbyville, they canceled the second one, calling it a “lawsuit trap” on Twitter.
Legal remedies
Paramilitary activity prohibitions: 25 states (including Virginia, where it’s a Class 5 felony) criminalize assem- bling a group to train or practice withfirearms or techniques that could hurtor kill someone, and intending to use those practices in a civil disorder.
False assumption statutes: 12 states (including Virginia) bar acting like a cop or the unauthorized wearing of military-like uniforms.
—University of Georgetown Law School’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection
William Evans wants a court to order the release of videos of James Fields’ Dodge Challenger plowing into counterprotesters on Fourth Street on August 12. Photo by Eze Amos
In a widely viewed YouTube video, a Fairfax man says he’s able to disprove information disseminated by the Charlottesville Police Department about the fatal car attack on August 12.
Now William Evans is on a mission to find two videos shown publicly in a December 14 court hearing that could help him understand what happened that day, and he claims the city has unlawfully refused to show them to him.
James Alex Fields is charged with driving a silver Dodge Challenger into a crowd of counterprotesters at the Unite the Right rally, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring more than a dozen others. His car rear-ended a second sedan, which then smashed into a minivan, according to a press release published by the city and on the CPD’s Facebook page on August 13.
“The minivan had slowed for a crowd of people crossing through the intersection,” the press release says. But Evans says otherwise. And he has made several YouTube videos about the events that transpired that day.
William Evans
In one called “NEW VIDEO from Charlottesville: the Grassy Knoll Film,” a nod to the conspiracy-theory-prone assassination of John F. Kennedy, Evans shows video evidence from an undisclosed source that the maroon van was stopped at the scene of the crash about five minutes before the fatal attack.
“You tell me whether that van slowed for a crowd of pedestrians or whether that van parked there deliberately,” he says in the video, while positioned in front of two bookcases overflowing with literature and wearing a light blue polo shirt. “The answer is obvious. The Charlottesville Police Department has an obligation to clarify this mistake and to investigate that maroon van, to investigate why it was parked there and to investigate the people in it.”
But Evans never explicitly states his own theory.
For this and other questions he’s raised on his YouTube channel, SonofNewo, Evans has filed a motion seeking a court order under the Freedom of Information Act that the city of Charlottesville and Commonwealth’s Attorney Joe Platania unseal the videos shown in an open courtroom at Fields’ December 14 preliminary hearing, and make them available to the public.
“The precedent is pretty clear across the entire country, both in the Supreme Court and in federal courts and in the state courts that statutes like this, when you show something like this to a portion of the public in a public setting, at that point you don’t have the right as a government entity to withhold it from anybody else who asks for it,” says Evans.
However, Alan Gernhardt at the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council says the videos could fall under FOIA’s criminal investigative files exemption, especially if they were shown at a preliminary hearing. “They’re not actually introduced into the court file,” he says. “It’s a discretionary release showing it for the preliminary hearing but not actually releasing it to the public.”
Evans says the accounts of the videos that he’s read from Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler and reporters from the New York Times and the Washington Post, who were present at the December hearing, are contradictory.
Platania declined to comment on the record about why he and Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Nina Antony motioned to withdraw the two videos from Fields’ case file.
“I have been served with the petitions and expect the Charlottesville Circuit Court to set the matter for a hearing that I plan to be present for,” he says.
Chris Cantwell, center, and his security detail with Gregory Conte and Eli Mosley is led by attorney Elmer Woodard, right, into Albemarle Circuit Court.
Staff photo
Another high-profile case went through Albemarle County Circuit Court on January 31, where motions for a self-proclaimed racist who found himself in trouble after the weekend of the Unite the Right rally had two motions denied and one granted.
Defense attorney Elmer Woodard, who represents several of the alt-right men facing charges from the deadly mid-August weekend, said Cantwell won’t be able to get a fair trial in Albemarle County. He asked to take his client’s trial, which is scheduled exactly six months after August 12, to a different locality.
“Mr. Cantwell’s got some men with him because it’s dangerous for him to move around Charlottesville,” Woodard told Judge Cheryl Higgins. When Cantwell entered circuit court that day, he was accompanied by an entourage that included Woodard, the attorney’s assistant and former Identity Evropa leader Eli Mosley.
Because Cantwell has such a high profile, Woodard said he expects a mob scene at each hearing—like the one at Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler’s August 13 press conference, where he was tackled to the ground and rescued by police.
The attorney told the judge before he and the suited men entered the building, they hid in the general district court “because we’re vulnerable.” He apparently scanned the vicinity before leading the group from one courthouse into the other. “My assistant, his job is to look behind me,” Woodard added.
Aside from this reporter and one man waiting for his own hearing, no one was outside the courthouses. “Who are those guys?” the man asked after Cantwell and his apparent security detail entered the building and the door closed behind them.
Among the entourage was Gregory Conte, who identifies himself in his Twitter bio as a Tyr 1 Security employee and the director of operations at the National Policy Institute, Richard Spencer’s white nationalist think tank based in Alexandria.
Conte formed the security company with his partner, Brian Brathovd, who is reportedly Spencer’s bodyguard. Conte never entered the courtroom, but stayed in the lobby where he appeared to be guarding a black box full of cell phones, which are prohibited inside.
In court, Woodard noted several instances of what he called “prejudice and excitement” from the local community, including press coverage from NBC29 and WINA and a publication he called “Charlottesville Today.”
He said the cars of alt-right members who came to support Cantwell at his November 9 preliminary hearing were towed. The cars were parked in a private church lot, and sources say the church had the vehicles removed.
“I used a transport service so my car can’t be traced,” Woodard said. He alleged that a woman tried to smuggle a steak knife into one of another client’s hearings in Charlottesville General District Court, and she told deputies the metal detector was beeping because she had a hip replacement.
For the second time that week in Albemarle Circuit Court, an attorney expressed worry about “sleeper activists” who could sit on the jury with the intention of convicting his client.
The day before Cantwell’s hearing, Kessler’s attorney expressed the same concern. The judge denied Kessler’s motion to move his trial out of Albemarle, and she did the same for the so-called “Crying Nazi,” who was given that name after he posted a tearful video to the web before turning himself in to Lynchburg police in August.
“Well, first of all, I’m not a Nazi,” Cantwell said in a jail interview in September. “I came down [to Charlottesville] because I think that I fucking have rights and that I don’t deserve my fucking race to be exterminated from the planet. Not everybody who’s skeptical of Jews is a fucking socialist, okay?”
Judge Higgins also denied his attorney’s request for a special prosecutor for the three-day trial, though Woodard explained that he may want to call Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Tracci as a witness, resulting in a mistrial and “a very, very, very upset judge.”
Depending on the answers from witnesses Emily Gorcenski and Kristopher Goad—who originally made statements that Cantwell sprayed them with pepper spray on August 11—Woodard said he’d like to question Tracci about some of their previous testimony.
Legal expert David Heilberg says calling the commonwealth’s attorney as a witness “is extremely rare and it might be a ploy to disqualify the prosecutor.”
“I find it is too speculative,” said Higgins as she denied the motion.
However, she did grant a final motion to amend Cantwell’s bond to allow him to go anywhere within the undisclosed Virginia city where he currently resides.
After the hearing, Christian Picciolini waited on the courthouse steps for Cantwell to exit and called out to Cantwell that he just wanted to talk.
“You have my phone number, loser,” Cantwell spat back at him.
Piccolini was recruited to join the Chicago Area Skinheads, America’s first group of neo-Nazis, at the age of 14.
“I used to be just like him,” Picciolini says, but he disassociated himself from the movement in 1996. “I started to receive compassion 30 years ago from the people I least deserved it from.”
Christian Picciolini Staff photo
The Chicago man, who is the co-founder of a nonprofit called Life After Hate, says he wants to sit down with Cantwell and offer him the same support that helped changed his ideologies.
He adds, “Nobody’s born with a swastika flag under his pillow.”
The effects of August 12 are both visible and unseen. Palpable and elusive. Deeply felt and formative. Last week, Fourth Street—where Heather Heyer was killed while marching alongside other counterprotesters to let white nationalists and the watching world know that hate has no home here—was renamed in Heyer’s honor.
The international spotlight that shone on our city following that weekend was undoubtedly blinding, and it brought to light deeper truths about our town and ourselves that we have sometimes shied away from. But growth is birthed from pain. And by confronting our past and present, we are collectively moving toward a stronger and more unified future.
For the last issue of the year, we collected essays from local residents, faith leaders, activists, students, teachers and government officials who told us how August 12 impacted their lives—then and now.
David Vaughn Straughn. Photo by Eze Amos
David Vaughn Straughn
Member of Black Lives Matter Charlottesville and Solidarity Cville, artist, writer, community organizer
The Downtown Mall is where my father worked, where I worked, where I’ve had countless drinks countless times, and where I met my first high school girlfriend. There was a lot of joy linked to this place, and I identified Charlottesville as a haven of warmth and security even when living elsewhere. Now it’s almost impossible to cross Fourth and Water without a chill down my spine; to not feel the pangs of anxiety, hypervigilance, resentment and the desire to isolate.
The air is still thick with particles of tear gas and smoke.
The streets are still stained in blood.
It still stings.
However, these horrible experiences brought a community together to eliminate hate and defend our hometown, and I have met so many extraordinary, powerful, beautiful people who hold profound values of devotion and who fight valiantly for the most marginalized.
To these people I am incredibly grateful that I am learning how to honor all people sincerely and respectfully, be they queer, trans, disabled or otherwise marginalized; that I am connecting more deeply with the people of color in my community, as we celebrate blackness and the complexities that lie within it; and accepting that I am (as we all are) a product of a pervasive, white supremacist heteropatriarchy, and being willing to unlearn toxic social beliefs and practices.
Also to truly know what it means to believe that All Black Lives Matter, not only in the general sense, but that the very existence of all of the black people we speak with and come in contact with on a daily basis matter. All of these various feelings, emotions, concerns, fears and viewpoints absolutely matter; that not only Trayvon, Sandra, Eric, Michael, Tamir and other lives already lost matter, but also that my neighbor’s life, words and presence matters.
Also, in that belief that All Black Lives Matter, I believe that my life matters.
Standing in the midst of this visceral hate within these tragedies, this anger and seething vitriol in front of me, in the midst of almost being crushed by a car in an act of terrorism, I am finally ready to live. I am finally ready to persist and thrive; to not just float down the stream of life, but to row with fervor and passion, fueled with the fire of those before me who dreamed of the chances I have today, and who died for the rights I have yet to receive.
The incidents of the weekend of August 11 and 12 prove that the right to live as a person of color in this country, truly free, without fear of harassment, subjugation or violence, is a right that has yet to be allowed to us.
Leslie Scott Jones. Photo by Cara Walton
Leslie Scott-Jones
Author, activist, artist
The Summer of Hate undoubtedly affected all of us. The thought that there are people whose main objective is to harm others is alarming; the idea that they’d travel hundreds of miles to hurt people they’ve never even met is almost too difficult to fathom. Life before this past summer in Charlottesville was, for many, the idyllic picture that most people outside believe. Inside, for people of color, life in Charlottesville is the same as it ever was. The veil of unspoken racism was made transparent on July 8, 2017. It was shouted from the throats of City Council, police officers and, yes, Ku Klux Klan members. On August 12, 2017, that veil was ripped down by a car purposely driven through an unsuspecting crowd, killing one woman and injuring many others.
Those who were inches from that act of terror are still dealing with the ramifications. Ones who weren’t standing on Fourth Street are dealing with the guilt that they weren’t inches from it with their friends. I plunged myself into art, into work. After directing Jitney by August Wilson at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, I accepted a role in Seven Guitars, also by August Wilson and produced at UVA, with no break. I dove in, trying to make sense of my guilt, my own terror. It took me months to walk the Downtown Mall again. I’m still uneasy because I know that the hatred did not come from out of town. It is home. It lives in the same place I have called home for my entire life.
Walking down a Charlottesville street was always a tricky thing for me. My brown skin feels like a bull’s-eye painted on me. That target is just as bright for me today as it was the afternoon of A12, when I was being ushered into a safe house…just in case. Now, I feel I have a moral responsibility to walk these streets to show all of the people who were standing next to Heather when she died that I respect the sacrifice they made for me. I walk these streets to send a message to people who hate me for something I cannot control: They will not take my life from me, they will not take my town.
I was fortified with the words of a dear friend and fellow activist who spoke to me through tears on A12: “This will not stop me. I will go harder. I will not stop.” In that moment I realized I could not let them fight this alone. I had to stand with them and for them.
I deal with the hatred by doing art that continues to show people of color as human. I will lift up those stories to show people that humanity is universal. I will make white people understand that the same lie that created racism in this country has hurt them, too.
Moving forward we have a common goal of ending racism in America. We have people whose eyes have been opened. The journey may be hard; it may take time. For me and for my fellow activists and artists, we are determined to stay on this road until the end. I lean on my friend’s words whenever I think the road is too hard, or this fight will be too long. I repeat them to myself, like a mantra: This will not stop me. I will go harder. I will not stop.
Photo by Eze Amos
Tom Gutherz
Senior rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel, member of the Charlottesville Clergy Collective
It was a little bit shocking for many people in the congregation to see that openness of antisemitic signs, using chants and slogans and symbols. Most of us had had some encounters with antisemitism, in the course of growing up and being a minority and, in most cases, it was probably what I would call the garden variety antisemitism, statements being made out of ignorance, but not always. But I don’t think anybody had really expected to see this kind of hate, and the youth and the vigor and the excitement of those people and the signs that they carried—for many people, it was disorienting. In the aftermath, it made us sit back and question some of the assumptions that we have about how comfortable we should or could feel in places we do feel comfortable in and that we do feel very much a part of.
We are right in the center of everything here at Congregation Beth Israel. One block from Emancipation Park, one block from Justice Park, one block from the courthouse where all these cases are being tried. In some ways, it has really changed the way we think about our own safety in a way that, I would say, we never have before. And that’s sad.
On the other hand, at the expense of going through this as a faith community—we had a very strong sense that the synagogue might be under threat—it really reminded people how much they care about this place, this community. How much they care about our building, how much they love to pray in this place, and how much they value this tradition as a source of comfort and strength—and resilience.
I was just at a clergy conference in Boston and people asked quite often, “Have you healed? Has Charlottesville healed?” And I think the answer is, well, not yet. As long as these court cases are still going on, there’s still a desire for justice, there’s still a desire for accountability. The question of the monuments is not settled. Charlottesville comes up quite often in the language and conversation of some of the haters out there. And we ourselves are not rushing to say, “This is all in the past, let’s just go back to the way it used to be,” because the discussion about the monuments and the role of City Council, all that did reveal—and continues to reveal—are some deep issues that our community has to deal with. I’d like to think that that’s going to have a positive result in the end. I’d like to think that some of those conversations will be seen as more necessary, and that we’re really going to pay attention to and hopefully find some solutions and work forward on them. That’s the good part about not healing too fast; it leaves open that desire to get to the root of things.
Eboni Bugg
Senior manager for diversity, inclusion and global outreach at the Mind & Life Institute, therapist, yoga teacher
I should begin by saying that although I was present for the rallies in May and July, I was abroad on August 11 and 12 and my perspective on the events of the summer exists within this context. The magnitude of the chaos, trauma and intensity of A11/12 was conveyed to me via news outlets, social media, friends, family and in the interpretations of the people I encountered across Europe and Botswana where I was traveling. The juxtaposition of attending a conference reflecting upon the African philosophy of ubuntu and exploring our shared humanity while my home was in turmoil can’t be understated.
In the midst of this dissonance, I received numerous emails and telephone calls requesting clinical presence for individuals and groups affected by the alt-right presence, violence and domestic terrorism. Most of these calls were for queer, trans and POC [people of color] affirming care, which can be difficult to come by or assess in our community. Since coming home, I have been providing ongoing support to many who have experienced trauma in the wake of A11/12, but also working with local organizations and groups to bolster awareness of the underlying issues that have permeated our community prior to the events of the summer. People often inquire as to what is different about my work post-A11/12, and the reality is that for many of my most vulnerable clients and the way I support them, much remains the same. The underlying societal imbalances that contributed to the trajectory of events over the summer is interwoven into the very fabric of our town.
In many ways, Charlottesville, in the shadow of Monticello, represents the birthplace of the American contradiction: life, liberty and freedom—for some. This contradiction extends into our major institutions and services for education, medical care and mental health. There exist disparate health outcomes for many marginalized groups in Charlottesville and very few providers that reflect the demographics of the community. The events of A11/12 in many ways highlighted these issues and my hope is that in the wake of this ongoing tragedy, our systems become better able to support those disproportionately affected by institutionalized oppression, but also create systems of accountability to help redress power imbalances.
In the work I do for groups and organizations, I love talking about ways of providing critical services such as education, medical care and mental health treatment in culturally responsive ways. This type of care reflects the potency with which culture impacts our ability to be successful in life, centers the individual’s culture as the frame of reference for offering help and is representative of the community it serves. This model works toward empowering communities from within, building capacity for historically under-resourced groups to build equity in their own health and wellness. Numerous community agencies have extended significant resources to respond to this crisis…this is not an indictment of their work. But as I reflect on what I have learned over the summer, I am also called to reflect on the work of the activists and community organizers who laid significant groundwork for us to question the validity of existing structures and to harness the energy of community to respond nimbly. As painful as these events are, the people who are seeking help have the opportunity to heal, not just from this trauma but from other traumatic experiences.
I have seen some internal barriers to vulnerability breaking down, and I’ve seen people really wrestling with the beautiful struggle of claiming and understanding one’s identity. By the time someone comes to see me, they’ve already done the hard work, and my job is to bear witness. It’s been a remarkable opportunity for me to be of service.
Brittany Caine-Conley. Photo by Eze Amos
Brittany Caine-Conley
Lead organizer of Congregate C’ville
I lend many thoughts to embodiment, always considering what it means to live and express faith in a bodily, present way. Faithful presence was the focus of my summer and the reason I showed up to counteract overt, violent white supremacy.
Both on July 8 and August 12, within the turmoil and the conflict and the exhaustion and the complete despair, I experienced what it means to be embodied, what it means to know something in my bones. I felt the evil of white supremacy to an extent I had never previously encountered.
I had witnessed white supremacy with my eyes. I understood it with my mind. I even prayed about it and lent my spirit and time to dismantling it. But I hadn’t encountered violent white supremacy in my bones.
In White Christian America we like to think about things and pray about things. We look at oppression and supremacy and evil, we mentally process oppression and supremacy and evil, we pray for the end of oppression and supremacy and evil, and we institute programs to address oppression and supremacy and evil. But we don’t actually experience oppressive supremacy in our bones.
There’s a striking difference between perceiving oppressive evil in our minds, seeing oppressive evil with our eyes, feeling oppressive evil with our flesh and actually knowing oppressive evil deep down in our bones. When a truth lodges itself in our bones, reality begins to shift.
We can’t simply think and pray and write checks and create programs and expect justice to flow like a river. Our reality will transform once we allow uncomfortable truths to lodge deep down inside of our bones. Goodness and justice will flow when we learn how to be present in the face of evil and oppression, when we experience, in our bodies, the very thing we hope to change.
May we show up. May we practice presence. May we learn how to accompany one another, not just with our thoughts and prayers, but with our bones.
Jocelyn Johnson
Jocelyn Johnson
Johnson Elementary School art teacher, writer
I tried to prepare. I braced against it. Still, August 12 in Charlottesville shifted something in me. When those men raised their Klan-marked Confederate flags, I felt like I could not breathe. When they chanted “Jews will not replace us!,” my mind flew back to visiting Germany in high school. Our school group took a day trip to Auschwitz. Sixteen and standing in that fallow place, the truth of history felt far away, as if a curtain of time shielded me from all the obscenities that had occurred there.
This summer, when those men aimed their rage at brown and black bodies, at immigrants and refugees and Jewish people, I felt overwhelmed with grief. By glorifying brutality and genocide, they proved my teenaged self wrong. The symbols they brandished, the chants they resurrected, made those historic atrocities feel close in the cave of my chest. Just like that I understood there was no distance. We could do terrible things. Terrible things could be done to us.
In the weeks afterward, I couldn’t sleep. I watched colleagues and students tearful and exhausted as the school year started. I wrestled with the fact that this spectacle of hate was now part of my son’s understanding of the world. Signs of anger, fear, stress and depression were more visible in our civic discourse and on my Facebook feed. Folks seemed to be retreating into smaller inward-looking circles, distrustful even of those who have a slightly different point of view.
But lately, I’ve noticed that people have grown more committed too, more determined. It’s as if they are also thinking what I’ve come to know. If there is no wall of time to protect us, then there is only us. If those men could position their bodies to do harm, then we can angle ours to do good. Those men offered us a rare close-up view of where tribalism and intolerance lead, but the legacy of August 12 is still forming in our hands. What if we manage to work together to define ourselves in blindingly stark contrast? What if we channel our new anxious energies toward fostering equity, diversity, decency? We face real challenges in this town and on this fragile boat of a planet. August 12 convinced me, we need each other more than ever now.
Photo by Eze Amos
Heather Hill
City councilor-elect
I believe our city’s reputation as an open and welcoming community made us a target for white supremacists seeking to aggressively oppose our ideals. Their actions on the weekend of August 12 revisited the worst demons of America’s past and reinforced the sad reality of the continued hate and discord among some Americans.
While the horrors of that weekend were the direct result of hate-filled visitors pouring into our city, the response of our government revealed systemic issues that have been present for some time. These include a lack of communication, coordination, responsiveness and an unwillingness to leverage external resources effectively. If we cannot handle the day-to-day responsibilities of government well, how can we expect to handle extraordinary situations?
This summer’s events have galvanized many of us to address the systemic flaws in our city. I believe that in order to accomplish this we need to focus on how our local government is structured and identify changes that make it more effective and more citizen focused. We need to educate ourselves so we understand how a strong economic base supports so many of the community’s needs. We need to work with our state leaders to influence decisions currently not in our direct control. Finally, we need to create mechanisms that enable us to develop a mutual understanding, working together to be effective problem solvers.
In the months that have followed August 12, I have heard from more and more people who want to be part of a meaningful path forward, yet ironically the public discourse that has been shaped by the rightful anger from the summer’s events is preventing the change we all want and need. This goes against what I believe our community wants to be—open to each other and our differences. I believe there is something to be learned from everyone, whether they speak loudly or softly, whether one may agree with them or not. It is important for voices to be heard by their government but it is also important that we maintain a respectful atmosphere where we treat and speak to others as we hope they would treat and speak to us.
It is hard for me to put into words how much my life has been enriched the past year by going into spaces less familiar to me and engaging with such a diverse and passionate set of voices. This experience has given me a new lens from which I now view our community, its diversity, its history and its future. I could not be more excited about the potential we have as a community to come together, build relationships and leverage our collective resources as we write the next chapter for our Charlottesville.
Tim Dodson
Tim Dodson
Third-year UVA student, current managing editor and incoming editor-in-chief of The Cavalier Daily
I can’t walk around the Rotunda without imagining the heat of the torches from the racists marching past me, or pass through the Alderman Library parking lot and not think of how white nationalists threatened to break my camera as I saw them throw a man to the ground and pile tiki torches into the back of a U-Haul truck.
When I walk downtown, I have flashbacks to choking on chemical irritants and militia men patrolling the streets.
I can’t forget looking down from the top of the Water Street Parking Garage on the scene of the two other vehicles hit in the car attack, surrounded by posters and fliers victims dropped as they fled the scene.
The events of August 11 and 12 still haunt me, and because the news never stops—reports being released, UVA students making demands of the administration, court hearings—I haven’t had much time to reflect. Journalists—yes, even student journalists—have a responsibility to follow the stories.
I’m still traumatized by what happened to the city where I’ve lived for my entire life, and I can’t imagine what it’s like to be someone who was injured on those days, or a member of a minority community targeted by the white nationalist movement. But I can listen.
August 11 and 12 taught me that journalists must listen to the wide range of perspectives in our communities and approach our work with more empathy. For example, I saw reporters and cameramen step on the flowers at Heather Heyer’s memorial. That was troubling, to say the least. In October, we also saw a local news station air an interview with a white nationalist leader who described torch rallies as “mystical and magical,” just days after the community’s wounds were reopened with another torch-lit rally.
The events forced me to think critically about my own work. I interviewed Richard Spencer for a piece about his time at UVA that The Cavalier Daily published earlier this year, and even though I made it clear he holds racist beliefs and included perspectives of people critical of his movement, I wonder if the potential harm of that article outweighed the importance of the question of how UVA shaped him. I stand by the reporting, but the ways in which we cover white nationalism demands reflection, and a willingness to admit we can and should do better.
A key challenge moving forward is engaging citizens and leaders to ensure the events of this past summer never happen again. From a journalistic perspective, that means providing students and community members with the information they need to get involved, whether it be at a student council, Board of Visitors or City Council meeting. It also means getting leaders on the record, and keeping them accountable when they fall short.
Jeff Fogel. Photo by Jackson Smith
Jeff Fogel
Civil rights attorney
In my six-plus decades of life, I have been at many demonstrations, protests and marches, but I had never seen such a spectacle of hate as graphic as that displayed on August 11 and 12. I was, however, glad to be there among so many people outraged by this scene and condemning fascism, white supremacy, homophobia and xenophobia. I was also happy to see so many people reject the idea, proposed by most of our city leaders, to leave the Nazis alone, on the misguided notion that they will just go away.
Never before had I seen police refusing to stop violence, ignoring pleas to intervene. Nazis were simply allowed to roam the streets of our city, threatening and intimidating and finally killing and maiming. Learning that the state police were ordered to stand down and that even the Charlottesville police were told to intervene only for serious bodily injury or death was shocking. I am representing people in seven different cases arising from July 8 and August 12, as well as incidents leading up to both events. In most cases, the defendants are demonstrably innocent and their arrest (even if they are ultimately acquitted) constituted punishment for exercising their free speech rights.
The aftermath of August, however, has also seen a positive and significant shift in the understanding of racial oppression in our community. Racial oppression, after all, is the flip side of white supremacy. Discussions about low-income housing, disparities in wealth and income and the treatment of African-Americans in the criminal justice and social service systems are all on the table and enjoying widespread support. We even elected [to City Council] a native of Charlottesville, an African-American woman and independent who sees through lies and hypocrisy. We have many moons to go to achieve true racial equality, but I think Charlottesville may be ready.
Charles Weber Jr.
Attorney and one of seven plaintiffs who brought a lawsuit against the city to stop the removal of the General Robert E. Lee statue
I am an optimist by nature. I would like to think that three watershed events of 2017 might present opportunities for change that could benefit all of the people of Charlottesville.
First, City Council, in reckless disregard of Virginia law, voted to remove our two historic Civil War monuments from our public parks, sparking the most serious political crisis in recent memory. In contrast to the overheated rhetoric and actual violence of the public demonstrations, the lawsuit filed against the city has proceeded respectfully and with the dignity required of legal proceedings.
Prediction: The city will lose the case and be ordered not to remove or interfere with the monuments. City Council will be forced to face reality. Some will not be happy with the result, but most of the public will understand that the rule of law prevailed and will more deeply appreciate the deliberative process of Virginia law.
Second, the city’s planning and real-time responses to the demonstrations and counter demonstrations over the summer have exposed inherent flaws in the structure of our local government. The purpose of democracy is to legitimize power and provide political accountability for those who exercise it.
Unlike the Constitutions of United States and Virginia, our city charter merges both legislative and executive power in one body, a city council composed of five part-time legislators. The city manager is an employee of City Council and not directly accountable to the voters.
So who can the voters hold politically accountable for shortcomings, real or perceived, in the executive branch of government this past year? Answer: no one really.
City Council met in executive session and emerged with a litany of mea culpas but no answers to the question of executive responsibility. A leader can always delegate authority but never responsibility.
The Heaphy report stands as Exhibit A for the proposition that a committee of five is structurally unfit to wield executive power. The people of Charlottesville would be better served If executive power were vested in one person, a full-time mayor elected by and accountable to the people.
Finally, on election day, the good people of Charlottesville, in a clear rebuke to the dominant Democratic party, handed Nikuyah Walker a historic victory—the first independent to be elected to City Council since 1948 and the first time in the history of Charlottesville that two African-Americans will serve simultaneously. What took so long?
Our charter specifies that all city councilors shall be elected at-large. In some localities, at-large elections have been found to violate the Voting Rights Act. In Charlottesville, at-large elections were adopted in 1922, at the height of the Jim Crow era, and were intended to disenfranchise as many impoverished people, including most African-Americans, as possible.
Until this past election, only seven African-Americans had ever been elected to serve on City Council in the entire history of Charlottesville as an independent city, the first being elected in 1970.
In 1981, a referendum calling for ward elections was passed by the voters, However, the Democrats on City Council nullified the vote and scheduled a second referendum. The second ballot initiative failed.
I believe that the people of Charlottesville, regardless of their skin color, will benefit by electing their councilors from smaller electoral districts. Doing so would alter the way in which the average citizen relates to his or her local government and could fundamentally improve the political culture in Charlottesville.
Kristin Szakos
Member of the Charlottesville City Council since 2009. Her term will end at the end of December.
When I ran for office eight years ago, I was fresh off the Obama campaign, and had become convinced that many of the things I’d heard from folks at the doors while canvassing—the desire for racial equity in education, for affordable housing, for living wage jobs and for access to government—needed to happen at the local level as well as in Washington.
I campaigned on those issues, and I have kept my focus on them ever since.
Before joining City Council, I was inspired by the work of the Dialogue on Race, instituted by Councilor Holly Edwards the year before, and had served as a facilitator to one of the Dialogue groups. The group’s focus on action as well as talk gave me—and many others—hope that the changes folks at the doors had wanted would be implemented.
And many have. The action items coming from that process have led, with City Council support, to Charlottesville’s Human Rights Ordinance and Commission; the keeping and sharing of racial data regarding police stops to be able to track and address racial inequities; the opening of the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center; the founding of a Promise Neighborhood—the City of Promise; creation of a job readiness/training/hiring program for people who have long been unemployed or underemployed; and a commitment as a Second Chance City for people with felony records.
Council also created and recently doubled the affordable housing fund and adopted policies to increase the production and preservation of affordable housing and counter pressures of gentrification. We have welcomed immigrants and refugees into our midst and celebrated our cultural diversity.
And yes, we voted to remove the Confederate statues that dominate our downtown parks—although a Circuit Court judge has issued an injunction keeping us from removing them.
But the work that made our city more fair and equitable was part of what brought white supremacists raging and screaming into our midst. Our commitment to move toward equity infuriated them, even as it fell short of what others had hoped for. And although I am heartbroken at the violence and the loss of lives the white supremacist rage inflicted, I cannot be sorry to live in a community that they object to.
The events of May 13, July 8 and August 12 have shaken this community to its core. The violence and our flawed response left many feeling unsafe and threatened, searching for who to blame. Council has heard fear and frustration and anger from every perspective: those who feel the changes haven’t gone far enough and those who feel they’ve gone too far.
I am hopeful that in the coming year we can recommit ourselves to building bridges, to listening, to talking to one another rather than at one another, acknowledging that we are all flawed and trying to be better. Vitriol and rage have their place, but they will not help to build up a community where all can feel safe and valued.
There’s a lot to do to make this the kind of community we know we should be. Overcoming 300 years of racial injustice and inequality in income, education and opportunity—along with supporting a thriving economy, keeping everyone safe and maintaining our infrastructure—are challenges that now face the next Council and the people of this city. I am confident that they are up to the task.
Photo by Eze AmosPhoto by Eze Amos
Mike Signer
Mayor of Charlottesville
I’m often asked if I’m an optimist or a pessimist after this year in Charlottesville. While I do have a combination of outrage, fury, disappointment, sadness and regret for what we were forced to endure, and for the many failures of our city and state governments documented in recent investigations, I answer that I’m still an optimist. I firmly believe we will overcome this dark chapter in our country’s history just as we did other dark chapters, whether McCarthyism or Jim Crow, through the very values and principles that make us Americans.
To the extent Charlottesville revealed a city, and a nation, that are vulnerable to this year’s firestorm, the years ahead will require the work of any village protecting itself from blazes. We have to address the inequities laid bare by this terrorism, and to make sure that such horrible events never happen again. This is why Charlottesville’s recent actions are so important, from creating more than 200 new units of affordable housing, to overhauling our permitting system, to suing the armed paramilitary groups who invaded us to prevent them from ever threatening us again, to the city manager announcing reforms for how the police approach these events.
I also take heart from political developments. In the recent statewide Virginia elections, candidates running on Trumpism were defeated by an unprecedented surge of activated voters. This stunning wave showed that, through it all, American constitutional democracy is alive and kicking. We are being stress-tested, and while it’s painful, we’re presenting the resilience and dynamism that leaders from James Madison to Martin Luther King Jr. saw as the heart of American democracy. The alternative of a passive and cynical populace just giving up would be much, much worse.
And so I believe that the year 2017, and the expansion in the resistance to Trumpism that followed Charlottesville, will ultimately rank as one of this country’s greatest constitutional moments, on par with the period of deep democratic self-reflection that occurred in the 1930s, as democracies in Europe fell one by one to tyranny, and as Sinclair Lewis wrote the best-selling novel It Can’t Happen Here.
To paraphrase many others, there’s nothing that’s wrong with us that what’s right with us can’t fix. But nothing will happen because of arcs of history or pendulums swinging on their own. It comes down to us—to individuals and organizations working hard to strengthen democracy, to embody the resilience that is the soul of American democracy.
Eze Amos
Eze Amos
Photojournalist
How has the summer affected me? Well, I’m heartened by the way the community has come together. July and August affected everyone in Charlottesville, and it’s amazing how people have reacted to it. In all, the community is in sync with the idea of bringing love back to Charlottesville. The whole thing has been dubbed “the summer of hate” and it’s amazing how people have come together to try not just to restore Charlottesville, but to be honest about the realities here and to build a better city. This city is my home. This is the place I came to as an immigrant a decade ago. I’ve never lived anywhere else in America. I love this city. And it’s my honor to be a small part of telling the story of my city. I’ve been following the rise of this white supremacy in Charlottesville for a few years now. I feel I know the story. I feel I am the right person to help tell it. And yet nothing prepared me for August. I wish I could have taken one photo that would have conveyed everything that happened that day. It was unreal.
And of course even as I appreciate how the community has come together, August has also helped me to name realities I’ve always sensed about Charlottesville but that I know some of my lighter-skinned friends don’t like to talk about. The tensions between black and white Charlottesville, the lack of diversity downtown—I see these issues more now. It has made me look at everything, at every person, in a new light. It has changed the way I see my environment now. Especially that day—being out there and seeing well over 1,000 people who came to Charlottesville all united in one thing: hate. You could see the hate on their faces, and the interesting thing about that is that these people didn’t actually know us at all. They just came into this town in order to hate us. These are adults, not just kids, not just youth who have lost their way. Some of them are old, grown men. Family men. You could tell that these guys have careers, they are professionals. The guy who punched me in the face, he looked like a family man. A man who has kids. And he came to my town with a shirt that has Hitler on it, and you could see the look on his face when he punched me, looking at me as though I was a thing. All of that has affected me in ways that I probably don’t even understand now. It has changed me.
I’ve been attacked online several times. I’ve been doxxed. I’ve always heard this before, but I never knew it to be true that black people look alike. Really, we do? A white supremacist picked a black face in the crowd and said I was the person, and he published my name next to the photo. He declared that I was a violent photographer and should be arrested. I looked at the photo and I look nothing like that person. My name was also on this list of dangerous antifa in Charlottesville that was published on a Nazi site, right alongside Tom Perriello. I guess I should be proud to be in the big league. I guess those guys just upped my status.
The impacts of August are ongoing and pervasive. As a photojournalist I go to every event I hear about. I go to all the City Council meetings and witness the confrontations over and over again, and I’m thinking, “Is this really Charlottesville?” I get it—people are angry, they have a right to be angry—I don’t want to say they shouldn’t be. But it has just changed everybody. The slightest thing will just tick people off. And it also has affected me. As much as I try to stay neutral, I have to admit that I’m still a black person. I’m still a black photojournalist. I’m still documenting the fallout. There are traces of August everywhere. There is no passing week that I’m not in a space or a conversation or an action that doesn’t remind me of that day. The mark of that day is never going to leave this town.
I haven’t been able to take a breath since August. I have been working non-stop. I’ve noticed in my everyday life that my capacity for patience just in general has been worn down. It is hard to live with this pressure for such a long time. To be perfectly honest, I could use a vacation.
But I also want to focus on the positive. I have made so many new friends since that day. In the few weeks following August 11 and 12 I probably made 500 new friends on Facebook. I see a lot of people downtown now who say hi to me. The summer of hate has actually helped me to build a bigger community of people in Charlottesville. I do love this city.
Heather Heyer's coworker and mentor Alfred Wilson, mother Susan Bro, and Mayor Mike Signer spoke at the dedication of Heather Heyer Way on Fourth Street. Photo by Eze Amos
On the morning of December 20, around 50 people drew to the scene of the August 12 vehicular attack that killed Heather Heyer and injured dozens more, where dead flowers still line the street and brick walls are still chalked with messages that mourn the 32 year old and disavow the hate that came to town that day.
“It’s always hard for me to come to this street,” said Susan Bro, the mother of the woman who died after being run over by a white supremacist in a Dodge Challenger. “I find it easier to go to the cemetery than to come here, frankly,” she said.
Photo by Eze Amos
But on this particular day, Heyer’s friends and family, coworkers, city officials and community members on whom she left a lasting impression gathered for the dedication of a street in her honor—Heather Heyer Way.
“I’m proud of how she died,” Bro said. “What other legacy could a mother ever want for her child?”
She, along with Heyer’s father, Mark, and her mentor and coworker at the Miller Law Group, Alfred Wilson, cried as they spoke.
“The terror attack that resulted in Ms. Heyer’s death and serious injuries to dozens more shocked our community and touched the heart and soul of not only Charlottesville, but the entire country,” read Mayor Mike Signer from a proclamation he signed that day. “This honorary designation pays tribute to Ms. Heyer’s dedication to justice, fairness, equal rights for all and positive social change.”
Heather Heyer Way extends from Market to Water streets and is an honorary designation, so Fourth Street addresses will not change.
