The Corner

The Unite the Right rally, also known as the Charlottesville rally or Charlottesville riots, was a white supremacist rally that occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia, from August 11 to 12, 2017. Protesters were members of the far-right and included self-identified members of the alt-right, neo-Confederates, neo-fascists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and various militias. The marchers chanted racist and antisemitic slogans, carried semi-automatic rifles, swastikas, Nazi symbols , the Valknut, Confederate battle flags, Deus Vult crosses, flags and other symbols of various past and present anti-Muslim and antisemitic groups. Within the Charlottesville area, the rally is often known as A12 or 8/12. The organizers' stated goals included unifying the American white nationalist movement and to oppose removing a statue of Robert E. Lee from Charlottesville's Emancipation Park.The rally occurred amidst the backdrop of controversy generated by the removal of Confederate monuments throughout the country in response to the Charleston church shooting in 2015. The event turned violent after protesters clashed with counter-protesters, leaving over 30 injured. On the morning of August 12, Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency, stating that public safety could not be safeguarded without additional powers. Within an hour, the Virginia State Police declared the assembly to be unlawful. At around 1:45 p.m., a self-identified white supremacist rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters about 0.5 miles away from the rally site, killing Heather Heyer and injuring 19. The alleged perpetrator, James Alex Fields Jr., was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. In December 2017, the charges were increased to first-degree murder. Attorney General Jeff Sessions described the attack as domestic terrorism against counterprotesters, and authorities began a civil rights investigation. On June 27, 2018, Fields was charged with multiple hate crimes.President Donald Trump's remarks on Charlottesville received significant negative attention. In his initial statement on the rally, Trump did not denounce white nationalists explicitly, instead condemning hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides. His statement and his subsequent defenses of it, in which he also referred to very fine people on both sides, were seen by critics as implying moral equivalence between the white supremacist marchers and those who protested against them, and were interpreted by many as a sign that he was sympathetic to white supremacy. The Republican National Committee condemned the events in Charlottesville, stating it was unified in revulsion at the abhorrent white supremacists [sic] demonstration in Charlottesville ... We urge swift and certain justice be meted out to domestic terrorists and groups aiding and abetting through the propagation of hateful ideology. The rally and surrounding clashes triggered a backlash against white supremacist groups in the U.S. A number of groups that participated in the rally had events canceled by universities and their financial and social media accounts closed by major companies. Facebook and Twitter users led vigilante campaigns on the platforms to personally identify and denounce individual marchers in the rally; following the start of the campaign, many of the marchers were shamed and vilified by the social media community, with several of the rally attendees being dismissed from their jobs as a result of the campaign.Unite the Right held an anniversary rally for August 11–12, 2018, in Washington D.C. Like the original, the rally was expected to draw large protests from religious organizations, civil rights groups, and anti-fascist organizers. The rally's turnout consisted of 20–30 protesters amidst thousands of counter-protestors.
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