1st. anniversary of 'The Charlottesville Protests'

1st. anniversary of 'The Charlottesville Protests'

After the aborted rally, at around 1:45 p.m., a man drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, hitting several and slamming into a stopped sedan, which hit a stopped minivan that was in front of it. The impact of the crash pushed the sedan and the minivan further into the crowd. The man then reversed the car through the crowd and fled the scene. One person was killed (Heather Heyer) and 19 others were injured in what police have called a deliberate attack. In the wake of the Charleston church shooting in 2015, efforts were made across the country to remove Confederate monuments from public spaces and rename streets honoring notable figures from the Confederacy. While often successful, these efforts faced a backlash from people concerned about protecting their Confederate heritage. The August 11–12 rally was organized to protest the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue honoring the Confederate general in Emancipation Park (which had been renamed by the city council from Lee Park in June 2016). The event was organized by Jason Kessler who had taken up the cause in March 2016 when Charlottesville Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy held a press conference to call for removal of the statue. Kessler, who refers to Bellamy as "anti-white," exposed a series of offensive tweets made by Bellamy several years earlier and unsuccessfully tried to remove him from office. Bellamy did however step down from his post on the Virginia Board of Education, and apologized for the offensive tweets. Kessler also cited the renaming of the park as a reason for the rally. https://www.patreon.com/theiconiumfoundation