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Kessler calls for Unite the Right redo

Jason Kessler's permit for the anniversary Unite the Right rally was denied. Photo by Eze Amos

It’s a day those living in Charlottesville would rather not relive. That it left three people dead and countless injured, or that it was shut down before it was scheduled to begin last August 12 has not stopped Jason Kessler from planning a second Charlottesville rally—on the one-year anniversary of Unite the Right.

While many may wonder why the homegrown right-winger, who’s been denounced by several former conservative comrades, would bring that kind of hate back to Charlottesville, he explains in a November 29 post on his blog, Real News w/ Jason Kessler: “I simply will not allow these bastards to use the one year anniversary of the Charlottesville government violating a federal judge’s order and the U.S. Constitution, in conjunction with violent Antifa groups, to further demonize our activists.”

For citizens in Charlottesville still recovering from this summer’s violent invasion of neo-Nazis, the reaction was one of shock and dismay.

“Immediate repulsion,” says activist Don Gathers when he heard about Kessler’s anniversary plan. “People say they throw up in their own mouth. That’s what it was like.”

He wonders, “What kind of mentality does it take to have that kind of gall to say you’re going to do that again, especially on that same weekend?”

City spokesperson Miriam Dickler has confirmed that Kessler’s application, filed November 27, for what he calls a “rally against government civil rights abuse and failure to follow security plans for political dissidents,” is under review, and says the city has no further comment.

The organizer, currently awaiting trial for perjury in Albemarle County, says 2018 Unite the Right attendees oppose any changes to Emancipation Park and are “memorializing the sacrifices made by political dissidents in Lee Park August 12, 2017.”

But on his blog, Kessler claims that this one, called Back to Charlottesville, will be different.

“At Unite the Right, I was just coming into my own as an event organizer and had faith in the Charlottesville Police Department to abide by the terms of the security arrangement and keep hostile groups separate,” he writes. “Obviously, that is no longer the case. Whereas I once took it in good faith that authorities were keeping the security arrangements secret so that hostile groups like Antifa would not learn of the plans and therefore create a security risk, I now understand that they did that to screw us over.”

The white nationalist continues, “They did it to ENABLE the Antifa to attack us while claiming that WE actually screwed this up by not following the security plan, which, oh-by-the-way, they refuse to release to the public so people can judge for themselves.”

Kessler, also known for his unfavorable reaction to being called a “crybaby” by local attorney Jeff Fogel, says he already has lawyers lined up for his latest event—because when he organized “UTR 1.0,” he was “flying by the seat of [his] pants”—and now when “Charlottesville rejects [his] permit, as [he] fully expects them to do,” he says “we will push back.”

The pro-white advocate also promises better organization at this rally than the one where white supremacists and counterprotesters clashed in the streets with weapons, shields and helmets.

“This time around I worked my ass off,” he says, critiquing his reliance on existing infrastructure—or passing off security to others—earlier this summer. “I don’t like that I didn’t have a megaphone on August 11 to warn marchers that Antifa were waiting for us at the base of the Thomas Jefferson statue. …the morning of August 12, I should have been notified that police didn’t show up to escort our VIPs. That was a huge red flag that I should have been able to use to warn people.”

The new permit requires special event liability insurance of at least $1 million. Insurance Kessler obtained online for the 2017 event was canceled after underwriters learned more about the Unite the Right rally.

Insurance professional Harry Landers says, “If anyone understands all the facts of who he is and what he’s doing, the chances of him obtaining insurance are nil.”

The governor’s task force on the events of August 12 recommended Charlottesville tighten its permit process and restrict weapons and the length of events. Kessler is requesting a two-day permit for a festival from 7am to 11pm Saturday, August 11, 2018, and from 6am to 11pm Sunday.

The announcement comes on the eve of the release of former U.S. attorney Tim Heaphy’s independent review of the city’s handling of the summer of hate, which is on the agenda for the December 4 City Council meeting.

Though traveling outside the country, Mayor Mike Signer says in an email, “I believe public safety should be our paramount concern, with the benefit of the recommendations from the Heaphy report and upcoming advice from our counsel on how to reform our permitting for public events.”

Says former mayor Dave Norris, “The city needs to revisit its ability to manage situations where there’s no assurance of peaceable assembly. This is an organizer who has clearly demonstrated a propensity for unpeaceable assembly.” And because of that, Norris says Kessler has ceded his right to hold public events in Charlottesville

“We need to prove to them that we are the good guys,” Kessler writes. And reiterating his “commitment to nonviolence,” he quotes Ecclesiastes 3:8: “There is a time for war and a time for peace.”

Says Gathers, “White supremacy: the gift that keeps on giving.”

This is an evolving story. We will update it as we get more information. Additional reporting by Lisa Provence.

Updated at 4:15pm November 29 with Mike Signer’s comment.

Updated at 5:24pm.

 

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In brief: Emmet Street revival, guerrilla knitters and suing reporters

Emmet Street Station, a one-story, 11,000-square-foot retail center, will house two restaurants and two retail stores, all around 2,500 square feet. Courtesy Neighborhood Development Services

Emmet Street revival

The vacant lot on the corner of Barracks Road and Emmet Street that once housed an Exxon station is finally seeing signs of life. Coran Capshaw’s Riverbend Development purchased the corner at 1200 Emmet St. for $2.1 million in April, a slightly better price than the $2.25 million Chevy Chase Bank paid for the corner in January 2008, just as the real estate market was beginning to crumble.

The site had a “bunch of challenges,” says Riverbend’s Alan Taylor, including a number of easements and a complicated site plan.

Originally dubbed Barracks Row, a one-story, 11,000-square-foot retail center will go by Emmet Street Station. The owners of Barracks Road Shopping Center, Federal Realty, across the street “were getting all trademarky on me, so we changed the name,” says Taylor.

The under-an-acre lot will house two restaurants and two retail stores, all around 2,500 square feet. One of the restaurants could be announced any day now, says Taylor, but he refuses to give any hints. “Everyone’s really going to like the tenant lineup,” he says.

And with three electric car-charging stations powered by solar panels, the corner could be a magnet for Tesla owners by next summer.

Other drivers should notice better flow through the Barracks-Emmet intersection. The developers gave the city a strip of land that will afford an extra lane, allowing two dedicated left-turn Barracks lanes on each side of intersection, which means left-turners can go at the same time.

Emmet Street Station is part of a redevelopment revival taking place on the entrance corridor. Across the street at the increasingly derelict Meadowbrook Shopping Center, the former Carriage House, Tavern and ALC Copies are slated for demolition to make way for a CVS.

Farther north, at 1248 Emmet St., Zaxby’s restaurant with a drive-through window is going up at the site that was once Lord Hardwicke’s. And a car wash at 1300 Emmet St. on the other side of Cook Out is well underway.

Widow-bilker sentenced

Former Farmington Country Club president Victor Dandridge was sentenced to seven years in prison November 9 for defrauding his best friend’s widow over 10 years—and lying to her about it—as well as his fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, and Blue Ridge Bank. Dandridge’s lawyer asked that he be allowed to self report, but the federal judge said he didn’t trust Dandridge and immediately remanded him to custody, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Knitters with a kudzu attitude

The Kudzu Project. Photo by Tom Cogill

As part of what they call the Kudzu Project, anonymous guerrilla knitters covered the lesser-known Confederate soldier statue in front of Albemarle County general district and circuit courts with a knitted swath of kudzu on the morning of “Crying Nazi” Chris Cantwell’s November 9 appearance, noting in a press release that the plant “grows on things that are abandoned and no longer relevant.”

FOIA suit

C-VILLE Weekly contributors Jackson Landers and Natalie Jacobsen, who made the documentary, Charlottesville: Our Streets, sued Charlottesville Police, Virginia State Police and the state Office of Public Safety after those orgs refused to turn over August 12 safety plans. More than a dozen attorneys representing the government showed up in court November 7, and the judge ruled the reporters must refile and sue the city, not the police department.

Requested rename

The General Robert E. Lee monument in Emancipation Park. Staff photo
The General Robert E. Lee monument in Emancipation Park. Staff photo

Activist group the Unity Coalition is circulating a petition to have Emancipation Park renamed—again. “How can we reunite this community when the name of a park is related to slavery,” says petition author Mary Carey. She calls the former Lee Park’s new name “insulting, disrespectful, hurtful, heartless, thoughtless, inhumane” and “mean-spirited,” adding that it “shows a lack of care for the people of color.”

Big spill

The Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority released an extra 109 million gallons from the South Fork Rivanna in August before issuing a drought watch October 3, followed by mandatory water restrictions about a week later, according to Allison Wrabel in the Daily Progress. The reservoir is full but the restrictions are still in place.

Spike Lee. Image: © Buckner/Rex Shutterstock via ZUMA Press

Quote of the Week: The truth is the United States was built upon the genocide of Native Americans and slavery. This university was built upon slavery. —Director Spike Lee at the Virginia Film Festival on how Americans must accept the country’s ugly history to move forward

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Emancipation and Justice: Lee and Jackson parks get new names

Names not chosen for the former Jackson Park (left): Court Square, Park, The Commons, Memory Park, Little Sorrel Park. For the former Lee Park: Sally Hemings Park, Library Park, Central Park, Festival Park

 

Following the disruptions to City Council meetings that have occurred with regularity since the call to remove the statue of General Robert E. Lee was first made more than a year ago, councilors voted 5-0 to ditch the monikers honoring Confederate generals Lee and Stonewall Jackson and dub them, respectively, Emancipation and Justice parks.

The public comment period before the vote reflected the divisiveness between far left and right that’s played out in the city over the past few weeks since the visit of white nationalist Richard Spencer and his tiki-torch-carrying brigade.

Former NAACP chair Rick Turner called the statues symbols of “white supremacy and terrorism” that have “distorted our historical memory.”

City Council candidate Kenneth Jackson told councilors, “You guys are lucky enough to be the only City Council that this city has actually went to hell on,” and he accused the council of “generating an atmosphere of hate and intolerance.”

And when he said black residents “don’t care about that statue,” activist Veronica Fitzhugh, who was arrested for a May 20 confrontation with Spencer buddy Jason Kessler, stood behind Jackson with her middle fingers extended.

When John Heyden came up to object to what he calls the “kill your local Nazi” posters that have been plastered around town and to members of Showing up for Racial Justice getting within two inches of his face at Miller’s last week, SURJers in attendance started humming, causing Mayor Mike Signer to suspend the meeting.

“This is ridiculous,” scolded Signer. “You’re like adolescents.” He asked Fitzhugh, who had wandered to the podium, to return to her seat.

Kessler decried the lack of First Amendment rights granted to white people, right-wingers and Confederate supporters, such as those he said peacefully assembled in Lee Park. “This is hyperbolic, it’s out of control,” he said.

SURJ members began to sing, “Fuck white supremacy,” to the tune of “Shoo Fly, Don’t Bother Me.” Signer again halted the meeting and police officers hauled out a handful of singers.

Council candidate Nikuyah Walker also attended the meeting, and said the statues have brought up a lot of trauma. “If we don’t fix those, we’ll never have peace in the community”, she said.

Don Gathers, who had been chair of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces, noted the divisiveness and hostilities coming from “a chunk of rock.”

He said, “As a city, we’re better than this,” and he urged the different sides to listen to each other and “to accept different viewpoints.”

It was a couple of hours into the meeting when councilors turned to renaming the parks. Councilor Kristin Szakos pointed to a name not on the list from the citizen survey and from the recommendations of parks and rec and the Historic Resources Committee for “the park formerly known as Lee Park”: Emancipation Park.

And she agreed with Councilor Kathy Galvin’s proposal to rename Jackson Park “Justice Square,” although she took issue with “square” because the park is not square, there’s already a Court Square there and the sibilant sound of Justice Square.

Signer favored “a bolder, more conceptual” name for the parks and supported Emancipation because “it was really strong.”

Councilor Bob Fenwick pointed out that the court injunction prohibiting the removal of the statue likely would be upheld, and he questioned calling it Emancipation Park with the Lee statue still there.

It was Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy who praised the aspirational nature of Emancipation and Justice parks. He favored a bold approach, as well, and urged the councilors to “use our collective energy to move forward,” with Emancipation and Justice as two steps that “are going to push us in the right direction.”

 

 

 

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Kumbaya moments at Lee Park—sort of

Bible in hand and on bended knees, activist Veronica Fitzhugh asks Jason Kessler, whom she's called a "Nazi," for forgiveness. Staff photo

Charlottesville religious leaders staged a counterprotest this morning at Lee Park in anticipation of a gathering of Confederate supporters that didn’t happen. And when two foes met amid the hymns and prayers, all was not forgiven.

According to a press release, the Confederates were supposed to be at the park at 10am. Members of the religious community, including Methodists, Unitarians and Sojourners, met at First Methodist Church before 9am and proceeded singing into the park.

More than 70 people gathered in front of the statue of General Robert E. Lee and sang,”We Shall Overcome,” “Give Peace a Chance” and “This Little Light of Mine” for more than two hours, while calling for racial justice, love and unity.

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People of faith gathered in Lee Park to support racial justice. Staff photo

At the same time off to the side, a handful of those who favor keeping the statue of Lee, an issue that has turned the park into a flashpoint that drew white nationalists two weeks ago, were not part of the unity the organizers advocated.

Western-heritage defender Jason Kessler said he was there to support City Council candidate Kenny Jackson.

Jackson, a native Charlottesvillian and an African-American, wants to keep the Lee statue, a position for which he said he’s been called an Uncle Tom. He pointed out that most of the people wanting to remove it—and assembled for the counterprotest—were affluent whites.

“When Dr. King came here,” said Jackson, “he talked about peace and unity. He didn’t try to make white people feel guilty about the past.”

And about the group of white activists with Showing Up for Racial Justice, he said, “They make us feel like we’re stupid and need special help,” he said.

The statue, he said, “is not an issue for the black community.”

And he denounced those who have been putting up posters around town with photos of Kessler and others, calling them Nazis.

Activist Veronica Fitzhugh’s peacemaking moment was rebuffed when she asked Kessler to hug her.

Instead, Kessler accused her of posting the “Know Your Nazi” posters around town. “It’s one thing to talk about love and peace, but this woman has been putting up fliers with my name and address, saying we’re Nazis, listing our places of business and telling people to harass us,” he said.

Ten days ago, Fitzhugh, wearing a pink wig, screamed in Kessler’s face for him to “fucking go home” when he sat at a table on the Downtown Mall May 20. Today, wearing a black mantilla-like scarf, she got on her knees before him and asked, “Are you going to forgive me?”

“I want you to leave me alone,” replied Kessler.

Jackson continued to object to the posters he claimed urged people to kill Nazis.

“What I said was, ‘Nazi go home,'” said Fitzhugh.

“Let him talk,” interjected Mason Pickett, a City Council regular who has his own adversarial relationship with SURJ, two of whose members quickly were in his face as police officers approached and intervened.

“It is not against the law to yell at people,” said Fitzhugh. Among the cops standing nearby was Chief Al Thomas, but when she asked, no one answered her question about the legality of screaming at people.

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Chief Al Thomas and Major Gary Pleasants are on hand, along with about 20 other cops at Lee Park. Photo Eze Amos

Jackson mentioned a May 20 video of Fitzhugh and others shouting at Kessler. “On the video you were cursing and abusing,” said Jackson, who pointed out that was illegal and indicated he knew that from personal experience.

There were some less confrontational discussions between those holding opposing viewpoints.

Artist Aaron Fein said he came to listen to other people. “Certainly there were people with whom I found common ground I didn’t expect, and other opinions weren’t changed.”

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Jason Kessler passed on an opportunity to hold hands in public. Photo Eze Amos

When a speaker from the larger religious group asked everyone to grab the hand of a neighbor, Fein stood in a small circle with Jackson’s group, which was also holding hands. Fein held one hand extended to Kessler, who kept his own firmly in his pocket.

Kessler told some of those talking to him that he supported Jackson because he wasn’t into “white guilt.” He pointed to the spiritual adherents and said, “These people are trying to wipe white people from the face of the earth by 2050. They want to displace white people.”

Brittany Caine-Conley was one of the organizers of the event. “I’m here because I think it’s imperative people of faith organize against racism,” she said. “It’s one of the imperatives of Christianity.”

“We need to stop hate,” echoed Jackson. “We need to stop posting signs that talk about killing people.”

As many of those in the park dispersed, Chief Thomas, when asked how it went, said, “We only have one goal—that everyone stays safe and respectful.”

Correction: Aaron Fein was misidentified in the original version.

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The man who confronted white nationalists in Lee Park

Jordan McNeish was playing music on the mall when he heard chanting and encountered a group of white nationalists in Lee Park. Staff photo

The initial police officer on the scene at the May 13 Lee Park demonstration of Richard Spencer’s alt-right gang described between 100 and 150 people carrying tiki-style torches, some of whom were in an argument with a man who was yelling at them to “leave my town,” according to a Charlottesville Police release.

That man was arrested the next night.

Jordan McNeish was charged with disorderly conduct at the Sunday, May 14, protest against the white nationalists who chanted  “we will not be replaced,” “blood and soil” and “Russia is our friend,” the night before. His arrest, he says, goes back to Saturday night.

McNeish was playing music on the Downtown Mall when he heard the chanting, he says. He left his guitar with a friend and walked over to Lee Park to see what was going on. He encountered what looked “almost like a frat crowd,” he says.

He says he was expecting a group like Virginia Flaggers, who defend Confederate symbols like the Lee statue or Confederate battle flags as part of their heritage.

But instead of encountering heritage-not-haters, he came upon white nationalists.

“I asked them what they were about,” he says. “They said, ‘I’m white, you’re white, we’re here for white culture.’”

McNeish says, “I didn’t think they would be that extreme. They told me with such eagerness.”

And his reaction, he says, was, “that’s more hate. I told them to get out of my town.”

McNeish, 28, says he didn’t see any cops or any media when he approached the group, which he estimates at 30 people, although he says it could have been breaking up. “I was by myself,” he adds.

And for his trouble, he had a couple of lit cigarettes thrown at him Saturday night, he says. “I had blood on my nose.”

He was again playing music on Mother’s Day when he saw the candlelight gathering in Lee Park and learned it was a response to the night before.

“I saw Jason Kessler with a loud speaker being obnoxious,” he says. He doesn’t want to go into too much detail about the disorderly conduct charge in which police say he spit on Kessler, but he does say, “I didn’t realize a cop was behind me.”

Photos from the event also show McNeish slammed to the ground by police. McNeish says he doesn’t recall a lot about the sequence of events, but that “it looked worse than it was.”

“When people resist arrest, force is used,” Charlottesville Police Major Gary Pleasants said at a press conference the next day. He also defined disorder: “When you do something that leads to a breach of the peace.”

Kessler, too, was charged with disorderly conduct, as was Charles W. Best, 21, who also was charged with concealed carry of a switchblade and felony assault on law enforcement for allegedly clocking a cop on the head with a thrown cell phone.

McNeish’s previous claim to local fame was when he started the Jefferson Area NORML in 2012 and convinced City Council to pass a resolution to ask the governor and General Assembly to reconsider pot penalties and consider regulating marijuana like alcohol.

That came after McNeish spent six months in jail for a felony conviction for possessing 2.6 ounces of pot in 2009 when he was 20. In Virginia, possession of more than half an ounce is a felony distribution charge.

“I used to try to get attention for activism,” says McNeish. “Now, not so much.”

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Lee Park scene of white nationalist demonstration, counterprotest

Protesters gathered May 14th in response to tiki torch-carrying white nationalists assembling in Lee Park the day before. Photo Eze Amos

A group led by UVA grad Richard Spencer, head of the white nationalist National Policy Institute, converged on Charlottesville Saturday and held a tiki-torch procession that evening that sparked a candlelit counter protest Sunday, along with denunciations from Mayor Mike Signer, Delegate David Toscano and the local Republican party chair.

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White nationalists gather by tiki-torch light under the statue of General Robert E. Lee. Photo PeterHedlund_@phedlund

The event thrust Charlottesville into the national spotlight again over a controversial vote by City Council to remove the statue of General Robert E. Lee. And it resulted in another arrest for local blogger Jason Kessler, who was charged with disorderly conduct following the Sunday demonstration after police ordered everyone to leave Lee Park at 10pm.

The Spencer-led alt-right group, clad in white polo shirts and khakis, a response to “antifas” in black, according to Kessler on his blog, met at McGuffey Art Center and marched to Jackson Park at Court Square, passing a Festival of Cultures being held in Lee Park.

“I’m here to say no to the city of Charlottesville,” said Spencer in an NBC29 interview. “You are not going to tear down this statue and you’re not going to replace us.”

It’s not clear who organized the event and from where the attendees hailed, but many appeared to be from out of town, including Nathan Damigo, who allegedly punched a woman at a Berkeley demonstration and is the founder of white nationalist group Identity Evropa, and Atlanta attorney Sam Dickson, who has represented Spencer and who calls himself a “racial communitarian activist” on his website. Spencer did not respond to an email inquiring about the white rights gathering.

The Jackson Park event was mostly peaceful until the end, when members of Showing Up for Racial Justice and others began shouting at the white nationalists as they left Jackson Park and followed them down Jefferson Street.

At the 9pm event, which Kessler called a “funeral procession for the dead,” but which Mayor Signer compared to a KKK rally, the group chanted “we will not be replaced,” “blood and soil” and “Russia is our friend,” the latter, explains Kessler, is because “Russian people are a white people.”

Police estimated that crowd at around 100 to 150, according to the Daily Progress, while Kessler put it at over 200. The first officer to arrive found a single male yelling “leave my town” to the white supremacists, and the demonstration broke up when police ordered everyone to disperse.

“We reject this intimidation,” tweeted Signer. “We are a Welcoming City, but such intolerance is not welcome here.” Signer has since been the target of anti-Semitic trolls on Twitter.

House Minority Leader Toscano joined in on Twitter: “Outrageous protests in Charlottesville this evening by apparent white supremacists. Unacceptable!”

And Charlottesville native/gubernatorial candidate Tom Perriello tweeted, “Get your white supremacist hate out of my hometown.”

“We won, you lost, little Tommy,” replied Spencer.

“Actually, you lost,” Perriello said. “In 1865. 150 years later, you’re still not over it.”

Charlottesville GOP chair Erich Reimer was quick to denounce the alt-righters. “Whoever these people were, the intolerance and hatred they seek to promote is utterly disgusting and disturbing beyond words,” he says in a statement.

Hundreds showed up to “take back Lee Park” in a counter demonstration at 9pm Sunday organized by SURJ, Black Lives Matter and others, according to the Progress.

The statue of Lee was draped with a banner that read, “Black Lives Matter. Fuck White Supremacy,” which was later torn off the statue by a bullhorn-carrying Kessler.

Emerson Stern, who was photographed with Spencer Saturday afternoon at Jackson Park, live streamed the Sunday event, and was surrounded by people demanding to know why he was filming. He said he was assaulted by a woman, and his phone was knocked from his hands several times.

He calls the reaction to his documenting the event ironic. “I’m black and I was threatened and assaulted by white liberal demonstrators,” he says. Stern says he agrees with Spencer on the monument issue. “I believe that the Lee statue should not be removed,” he says.

Stern has footage of counter protesters locking arms and blocking Kessler, while shouting, “Black lives matter.”

After police announced the park closed at 10pm and participants were leaving, Kessler, 33, was arrested for not obeying officers’ commands to leave and for inciting others with his bullhorn, as was Charles William Best, 21, for assaulting law enforcement, a felony, and Jordan McNeish, 28, for disorderly conduct for spitting on Kessler, according to police.

On Monday, Perriello held a press conference at Lee Park, where at least a dozen police officers were stationed around the park. He called for a state commission on racial healing and transformation, and the elimination of the Lee-Jackson state holiday as “something that’s dividing us.” Said Perriello, “We believe these are the last gasps of a dying racist ideology.”

MORE PHOTOS FROM SUNDAY’S COUNTERPROTEST:

leePark_EmersonStern
Emerson Stern live streamed the Sunday event, and had his phone knocked out of his hand several times. Photo Eze Amos
leeParkWesBellamy
Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy, left, who called for the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue last year, says he’s been threatened with lynching and his family has been harassed. Photo Eze Amos
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Counter demonstration by candlelight at Lee Park Sunday night. Photo Eze Amos
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Jason Kessler before he ripped the “Black Lives Matter” banner off the Lee statue. Photo Eze Amos
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Jason Kessler was one of three people arrested Sunday night. Photo Eze Amos
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Don Gathers, who chaired the city’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces, speaks up at the Lee Park counter demonstration. Photo Eze Amos

Updated Monday, May 15 at 12:09pm.

Updated Monday, May 15 at 5pm.

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In brief: Dissent in the air, taco shop heist and more

The scene at Lee Park February 11 when Corey Stewart clashed with SURJ--Stand Up for Racial Justice. Photo Eze Amos

Rolling Stone resists

The magazine was back in court February 9 in Roanoke to ask a judge to throw out a $3 million jury award to UVA administrator Nicole Eramo for defamation, arguing Eramo didn’t prove reporter Sabrina Erdely acted with actual malice and that running a correction isn’t defamatory republication. Judge Glen Conrad will rule in a few weeks.

Behind-the-scenes civil rights activist

Paul Saunier, who helped recruit black students to UVA in the ’60s, support them once here and who convinced most Corner businesses to desegregate in 1962 while he served as an adviser to the university’s then-president Edgar Shannon, died February 8 at age 97.

Patriot boycott

Super Bowl winner Chris Long, a St. Anne’s-Belfield and UVA grad and son of Howie, says he will not join his fellow New England Patriots in the traditional visit to the White House.

Coran Capshaw
Coran Capshaw. Photo Ashley Twigg

Still powerful

Music and development magnate Coran Capshaw comes in at No. 11 on Billboard’s Power 100 list—he was No. 7 last year.

Psychic’s husband sentenced

Donnie Marks will spend 33 months in prison and was ordered to pay $5.5 million in restitution to the victims he and his wife, Sandra Marks, aka Psychic Catherine, bilked when she claimed she could remove curses by cleansing large sums of cash. Marks, who is serving 30 months, met her marks at Synchronicity, a spiritual facility in Nelson.

Photo: Tom McGovern
No tacos were harmed during the Brazos burglary. Photo Tom McGovern

Brazos bandits

The Austin-style taco shop posted a video of two hooded thieves attempting to break into its cash register with what appeared to be a hammer over the weekend. The “knuckleheads,” as Brazos Tacos called them on Instagram, were caught by the Charlottesville Police Department.

Weekend warriors

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GOP candidate for governor Corey Stewart, center, with Joe Draego, left, who sued City Council, and Thaddeus Dionne Alexander. Photo Eze Amos

Demonstrations are becoming the new norm since the election of Donald Trump, and last Saturday saw at least three occasions of citizens exercising their rights to assemble. Although mostly peaceful, the demonstration and counterprotest at Lee Park got loud.

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Counterprotesters. Photo Eze Amos
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A local blogger with Harper Lee’s book. Photo Eze Amos

Gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart came to denounce City Council’s decision to remove the statue of General Robert E. Lee, bringing with him Thaddeus Dionne Alexander, who became a social media sensation for telling Hillary Clinton supporters to “stop being crybabies.” Stewart was met by protesters shouting, “Hey hey, ho ho, white supremacy’s got to go,” and his campaign described them as “an aggressive mob of liberal protesters.” WINA’s Rob Schilling captured on video WCHV’s Joe Thomas being verbally blasted by a bullhorn-wielding demonstrator.

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Rob Schilling and Corey Stewart. Photo Eze Amos
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Jennifer Tidwell, holding sign up, protests across town at Congressman Tom Garrett’s office.

Congressman Tom Garrett’s Berkmar Crossing office has been the venue of regular Tuesday protests since he was sworn in, and Charlottesville NOW’s February 11 protest brought hundreds to decry the defunding of Planned Parenthood. Down the road, a smaller anti-abortion group carried signs outside of Planned Parenthood’s facility.

Richmond watch

Last week was crossover week, when each chamber had completed work on its own bills and began considering legislation passed by the other body. Local delegates had these bills passed.

Delegate Steve Landes. File photoSteve Landes, R-Weyers Cave

Free speech on campus bill: For when the First Amendment isn’t enough.

Beloved bill redux: Requires boards of education to notify parents when materials have explicit content that would be defined as felonious sexual assault.

Photo: Amy JacksonRob Bell, R-Albemarle

Tebow bill: Bell carries his bill for about the 18th time that would allow homeschooled kids to play public school sports. The governor vetoed it last year.

Delegate David Toscano will stick around as House minority leader for at least one more session. Submitted photoDavid Toscano, D-Charlottesville

Misdemeanor DNA: Resolution requesting a study on expanding the use of DNA is headed to the Crime Commission for consideration.

Matt Fariss

Matt Fariss, R-Rustburg

Dangerous dog: Amends law to specify a nip doesn’t make a canine a menace.

Quote of the week

“Newby Gov candidate @Denver4Governor’s inexperience is showing. Doesn’t he know I voted AGAINST moving Lee statue?!”—Mayor Mike Signer responds to Denver Riggleman on Twitter

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‘Lightning in a bottle:’ Statue commission chair disappointed by decision

Don Gathers (center), the commission’s chairman, is disappointed by the group’s recommendation to keep the Confederate statues in their original locations. Photo by Eze Amos

In a 6-3 vote, Blue Ribbon Commission members recommended that the city keep its General Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson statues in their current Lee Park and Court Square locations, though the committee’s chairman Don Gathers voted otherwise.

“We as a commission and as a city missed an opportunity here to show some real progress,” Gathers says.

Mayor Mike Signer created the commission on race, memorials and public spaces after Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy called for a rally to remove the Lee statue from Lee Park in March, because some members of the community have been offended by the celebration of Confederate heroes in a post-Civil War era.

“It is my sincere belief that for us to take no action, which in essence is what I personally feel that we’ve done, means that we have bowed down to a segment of society in our area that has no real relevance here anymore,” Gathers says about the November 1 vote to let the statues stay. His commission was elected to evaluate the presence of similar statutes in town and recommend to City Council what should be done with them.

He continues, “Unfortunately, the commission didn’t vote to capture the lightning in a bottle when we had the chance to do so.”

The controversy has been fueled by passion, he says, and members of the public at each meeting have spoken strongly about either keeping the memorials in place, further contextualizing them or moving them out of their public parks and into private areas.

And each idea, either presented by the public or the commission, has been heavily criticized. But Gathers says he hasn’t taken the scrutiny to heart—“I’ve refereed high school and college basketball for over 20 years,” he says, laughing. “I’m used to criticism.”

One of his ideas, which he says most of the commission members seemed interested in at one point, was moving the statues to McIntire Park because Paul Goodloe McIntire gave them to the city in the early 1900s.

“I couldn’t think of a better place for them to reside than in the park named after him,” Gathers says.

From 6-9pm on November 10 at Walker Upper Elementary School, the Blue Ribbon Commission will present to the public a portion of the final recommendation it will make to City Council on December 19. Time will be set aside for public comment.

Gathers says commissioners will further explain the recommendation to contextualize the memorials in their respective parks with a more expanded version of the history the statues represent.

“There are some who don’t know for certain that that particular [task] can be accomplished,” Gathers says. “That was a real concern throughout the discussions.”

And what will those contextualizations look like? It’s up in the air.

“I think the plan was to pretty much leave that up to Council,” he says.

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‘Confederate fabulous:’ Gay and black issues collide at Lee Park

General Robert E. Lee’s horse, Traveler, was gaily festooned at the Cville Pride Festival, until someone called police and accused the festival of defacing the statue. Guillermo Ubilla; SCHMIDT: Courtesy subject

As Charlottesville continues to grapple with its Civil War history and the statue of General Robert E. Lee on his trusty steed, for a while at the Cville Pride Festival September 17 in Lee Park, Traveler sported a multicolored boa in a bit of ironic subversion.

Until someone called the police.

“Confederate fabulous is not an option—they de-campified it,” says UVA professor Jalane Schmidt. “I saw Pride as prioritizing queer respectability politics over being an ally with everyone offended by white supremacy.”

Pride did not decorate the statue, but board member Matthew Brown climbed up and removed the boa, and festival organizer Lisa Green says she takes full responsibility for the decision.

“Even though we live in Charlottesville under a bubble, every year someone complains,” says Green. “If someone is going to complain, it’s not going to be because we’re not following the rules. It’s going to be because it’s an LGBT event.”

Green says the decision to remove the boa was difficult and there was a long discussion before it came down. “I made the call because the complainant kept calling,” she says, and she did not want the festival accused of “defacing public property.”

Schmidt notes that at other events, such as the Tom Tom Founders Festival, Traveler was decorated with legwarmers, and no one complained about that.

Tom Tom organizer Paul Beyer says that was done by a “guerrilla” knitting group, and not sanctioned by the festival.

“When groups use that park and they don’t say anything about the name, I see that as acquiescence to white supremacy,” says Schmidt. She cites “intersectionality politics,” and says, “I don’t stop being black when I talk about being gay.”

Schmidt teaches monuments and memory in UVA’s religion department, and she’s been vocal at City Council and Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces meetings.

She refers to Lee Park as “change-the-name park,” and says statues such as Lee and General Stonewall Jackson at Court Square should be removed and relocated, much as Hungary did with sculptures from its Soviet past that have been placed in Monument Park as part of the country’s history that isn’t lauded, but should be remembered “as a cautionary tale. I don’t want to airbrush history like the Kremlin used to do,” when those out of favor with the Communist Party were removed from photos.

At the time of the Civil War, 52 percent of Albemarle and Charlottesville’s population was enslaved, says Schmidt. “If anything, there should be monuments to the enslaved majority and to the Union troops who came to set them free. Over half were slaves. That’s what I think we should remember.”

Many have spoken in favor of keeping the statues and reframing them with plaques to provide more context. “That’s not enough,” says Schmidt. Nor does she subscribe to the idea of building more monuments to honor African-American leaders without removing the Confederate ones. “That’s not acceptable because these central places have already been taken by white folks,” she says. “Any monument to black people will already be peripheral.”

And for those who argue the statues were a gift, she reminds us of grandma’s ugly sweater, disposed of with hilarity at white elephant parties, or wedding rings after divorce. “They were a gift, but they represent an earlier self with which we no longer identify,” she says. “We’ve moved on, and it’s simply not appropriate any longer to wear this gift.”

For Pride organizers, there were no easy answers. Its president, Amy Sarah Marshall, was a speaker at the March rally in support of removing the Lee statue.

“We have had major discussions” on the issue of holding the Pride Festival in Lee Park, says Green. “A lot of people believe being in the middle of town, that’s also making a statement.”

And she says the decision to remove the boa did not reflect her personal views. “It was for the greater good of a nonprofit and we work very hard to be good citizens and community members.”

Both Green and Brown praise the police officers who worked the festival. “The officers were showing solidarity with the festival,” says Brown, who has family members in law enforcement.

He offered to take the boa down because he didn’t like the optics of “an African-American officer on a ladder photographed taking it down.” Personally, he hopes the “statue finds a new home,” he says. “Taking [the boa] down in no way represents approval of the statue and what it represents.”

Schmidt is unlikely to be convinced. She compares groups that use the park like Cville Pride and Tom Tom to “the nice white people during segregation who continued to patronize segregated establishments and didn’t say anything publicly if they objected to it. Your private regrets, expressed sotto voce, do not make you an ally or promote change. It’s time to stand up and be counted, because silence equals consent.”

Clarification September 29: The 54 percent enslaved population at the time of the Civil War includes both Charlottesville and Albemarle County. And Schmidt does favor statues of African American luminaries in place of the Confederate monuments.

Correction September 30: According to the 1860 census, 54 percent of the Charlottesville-Albemarle population was black, 52 percent was enslaved.

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Not black and white: Lee statue evokes deep feelings on racial history

More than 100 people told the Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces what they thought about the Robert E. Lee statue, and more. Photo Eze Amos

In its first listening session July 28, the City Council-appointed Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces heard from well over 100 citizens, who packed the African American Heritage Center at the Jefferson School to talk about Charlottesville’s painful history.

Their responses weren’t always clear-cut as far as the statue of Robert E. Lee was concerned, the call for the removal of which earlier this year led to the creation of the commission. Of the 38 speakers, 18 said they wanted to keep the statue, eight wanted it removed, some said they didn’t care and others wanted more acknowledgment of Charlottesville’s stories that haven’t been told.

“It looks like my whole history is in this room,” said Mary Carey, 70, who attended the segregated Jefferson School. She recalled going as a child to the McIntire Library, which borders Lee Park, and “having to sit on the edge while the white kids ran all around.”

Carey said she wanted people educated about Charlottesville history, and that she could live with the statue. “Do what you want,” she said. “I’ve already been humiliated by it when I was a little girl.”

Rose Hill resident Nancy Carpenter also didn’t care whether the statue stays or goes, but she did want to start the healing. “We really need to rip away the Band-Aid and move forward,” she said.

Civil rights attorney Jeff Fogel said the Civil War monuments are not accidents. “They’re a continuum of oppression of African-American people.” He said he wanted to know why the city doesn’t have blue ribbon commissions to talk about why 27 percent of the population is poor and black, why housing is segregated and why police stop blacks more than whites.

Several speakers were dismayed that the slave auction in Court Square was only commemorated by a small plaque on the ground. Others were concerned about the cost of removing the statues, and suggested the money could be better spent on education.

And still others were bothered about the message of removing the statues. Raymond Tindel, former registrar at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, noted ISIS and the Taliban’s destruction of antiquities.

“I found this horrible,” he said. “I did not expect to find the same situation here when I moved to Albemarle” because the area had a reputation of tolerance and inclusiveness. “You can’t gain a reputation for tolerance if you only tolerate the things you like,” he said. “Learn from it.”

“Do you know why the statue of Robert E. Lee is here?” asked Rob Elliott, who was wearing a cap with a Confederate flag emblem.

“To support white supremacy,” a woman’s voice interjected from the audience.

Elliott said Lee stopped Union General Ulysses Grant from coming from the west to burn Charlottesville, and added, “All lives matter. We need to let it go.”

Lewis Martin, who has accused City Council of stacking the commission with those in favor of removing the statue, took another tack, and pointed out that the statues of Confederate and Union soldiers erected by the generation after the Civil War bear striking similarities, and not just because they all came from the same company in Massachusetts.

People in the north also were putting up statues to honor their ancestors, he said. “Whether in Court Square or Zanesville, Ohio, the same words are there: honor, bravery. That’s why I don’t believe the statues in Lee Park were put up to oppress.”

The Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces heard from citizens July 28 at the Jefferson School, itself a reminder of Charlottesville’s segregated past. Photo Eze Amos
The Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces heard from citizens July 28 at the Jefferson School, itself a reminder of Charlottesville’s segregated past. Photo Eze Amos

The commission heard from 27 speakers in the first hour of the gathering, then broke the attendees into eight smaller groups for their ideas on four topics: what stories about Charlottesville should be told, what places need to be memorialized and what the statues of Lee and Stonewall Jackson in Court Square mean to individuals and what should be done about them.

For about an hour, the smaller groups rotated between topics as facilitators asked what they thought and recorders wrote their answers on large flip boards. City staff will compile the information on spreadsheets to see how many times an issue is mentioned, said commission chair Don Gathers.

“Once we put all of that together, we can make a reasonable judgment on the pulse of the city,” he said.

In between listening to comments from the smaller groups, commissioner Margaret O’Bryant, who is also librarian at the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society, said, “I’m impressed by the ingenuity of ideas for additional memorials and interpretations. A lot of people have a lot of good ideas.”

And for many, it seemed an opportunity to publicly talk about a painful topic. Dale McDonald compared Lee to Benedict Arnold. “He was a traitor to his country,” he said. “I would be glad to remove it myself.”

Uriah Fields, who helped organize the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, agreed and said he would like to posthumously put Lee on trial. “I am for removing that statue because it represents slavery,” he said.

But for Charlottesville native Joan Burton, who says her ancestors were owned by Peter Jefferson and John Wayles and inherited by Thomas and Martha Jefferson, the history is important. “Although I’m disturbed by the statues, I don’t want them taken down,” she said. “Although I may have been resentful of Monticello, I want them to tell the story of the people who were there.”