Charlottesville anniversary low key

Washington – A white nationalist rally in Washington drew two dozen demonstrators and thousands of chanting counterprotesters on Sunday, the one-year anniversary of racially charged violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

A large police presence kept the two sides separate in Lafayette Square in front of the White House. After two hours and a few speeches, the Unite the Right 2 rally ended early as it began to rain.

Sunday’s events, while tense at times, were a far cry from the street brawls in Charlottesville a year ago, when a local woman was killed by a man who drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters.

Unite the Right 2 had been denied a permit in Charlottesville this year, but secured one for Washington. Organisers had planned for up to 400 protesters.

At the head of the white nationalist group was Virginia activist Jason Kessler, who helped organise last year’s event in Charlottesville. He emerged with a handful of fellow demonstrators from a subway station holding a US flag and walked toward the White House ringed by police, while counterprotesters taunted the group and called them Nazis.

Police said that as of 6pm, they had made no arrests and would not give a crowd estimate.

The violence last year in Charlottesville, sparked by white nationalists’ outrage over a plan to remove a Confederate general’s statue, convulsed the nation.