Anti-Hate Demonstrators Across U.S. Counter Virginia White Supremacist Rally
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS/AP/BCN) -- Protesters decrying hatred and racism planned to converge Sunday around the country, saying they felt compelled to counteract the white supremacist rally that spiraled into deadly violence in Virginia.
The planned gatherings spanned from a march to Trump Tower in New York to a candlelight vigil in Florida to a rally in a public square in Cleveland.
Some focused on showing support for the people whom white supremacists' condemn. Other demonstrations were pushing for the removal of Confederate monuments, the issue that initially prompted white nationalists to gather in anger this weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia. Still other gatherings aimed to denounce fascism and a presidential administration that organizers feel has let white supremacists feel empowered.
"People need to wake up, recognize that and resist it as fearlessly as it needs to be done," said Carl Dix, a leader of the Refuse Fascism group organizing demonstrations in New York, San Francisco and other cities. "This can't be allowed to fester and to grow because we've seen what happened in the past when that was allowed.
"It has to be confronted," said Dix, a New Yorker who spoke by phone from Charlottesville Sunday afternoon. He'd gone there to witness and deplore the white nationalist rally on a Saturday that spiraled into bloodshed.
Meanwhile, dozens of people carrying signs with such messages as "White Supremacy Is Terrorism" and "Another Suburban Mom Against White Supremacy" were rallying in Greenville, South Carolina, video footage from The Greenville News showed.
Organizer Todd May, a Clemson University professor, said the goal is to show the targets of white supremacist rhetoric that "they're not alone."
Other protests were planned later in the day in other places, including candlelight vigils in Winter Haven, Florida, and near the New Hampshire Statehouse. Other demonstrations centered on confederate statues on the state Capitol grounds in West Virginia and in Tampa, Florida; officials in Tampa have voted to relocate theirs.
The Florida chapter of the group Save Southern Heritage released a statement Sunday expressing "horror and disbelief" over the deaths in Charlottesville, Virginia, but also blaming news reports for "renewed attacks on Florida's historical assets," including the Tampa Confederate war memorial.
Charlottesville descended into violence Saturday after neo-Nazis, skinheads, Ku Klux Klan members and other white nationalists gathered to "take America back" and oppose plans to remove a Confederate statue in the Virginia college town, and hundreds of other people came to protest the rally. The groups clashed in street brawls, with hundreds of people throwing punches, hurling water bottles and beating each other with sticks and shields.
Eventually, a car rammed into a peaceful crowd of anti-white-nationalist protesters, killing a woman identified as Heather Heyer, 32, a resident of Charlottesville. A state police helicopter monitoring the events crashed into the woods, killing two troopers. In all, dozens of people were injured.
James A. Fields Jr., 20, of Maumee, Ohio, was taken into custody and charged with one count of second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding and one count of hit-and-run following the incident.
My heart goes out to Heather Heyer's family. She died standing up against hate & bigotry. Her bravery should inspire all to come together. pic.twitter.com/1Zbi2D2Vgq
— Terry McAuliffe (@GovernorVA) August 13, 2017
Prominent white nationalist Richard Spencer, who attended the rally, denied all responsibility for the violence. He blamed the counter-protesters and police.
Trump condemned what he called an "egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides," a statement that Democrats and some of the president's fellow Republicans saw as equivocating about who was to blame. The White House later added that the condemnation "includes white Supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazi and all extremist groups."
Some of the white nationalists at Saturday's rally cited Trump's victory, after a campaign of racially charged rhetoric, as validation for their beliefs. Some of the people protesting Sunday also point to the president and his campaign, saying they gave license to racist hatred that built into what happened in Charlottesville.
"For those who questioned whether 'oh, don't call it fascism' ... this should resolve those issues," Reiko Redmonde, an organizer of a Refuse Fascism protest planned in San Francisco, said by phone. "People need to get out in the streets to protest, in a determined way."
About 450 people marched peacefully in downtown Oakland on Saturday night in response to the events in Charlottesville. On Sunday, Oakland police said they had received no reports of injuries.
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