CHARLOTTESVILLE HONORS HEATHER HEYER’S LEGACY
“They tried to kill my daughter to shut her up. Well, guess what. You just magnified her.”
Family, friends, supporters and other mourners gathered Wednesday in Charlottesville, Va., to honor a 32- year- old legal assistant who was killed when a car plowed into a crowd of people protesting a white supremacist rally.
Heather Heyer’s death in the narrow streets of Charlottesville on Saturday followed a day and a half of violent clashes between counterprotesters and Ku Klux Klan members and neo- Nazis who descended on the small college town to rally against the city’s decision to remove a monument to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
“She wanted respect for everyone. In our family, all lives mattered, and she absorbed that really well,” Heyer’s grandfather Elwood Shrader said.
Her father, Mark Heyer, said she loved people and pushed for equality.
“She wanted to put down hate. We just need to stop all this stuff and love one another,” he said.
Her mother, Susan Bro, brought up the Facebook post that peppered social media in the days after Heyer’s death.
“My child’s famous Facebook post was, ‘ If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention,’ ” Bro said. “She paid attention. She made a lot of us pay attention.”
Bro said she hopes the memorial is just the beginning of “Heather’s legacy” and encouraged mourners to make a difference in the world.
“The reason that what happened to Heather struck a chord is that we know what she did was achievable,” Bro said. “They tried to kill my daughter to shut her up. Well, guess what. You just magnified her.”
Police charged James Alex Fields Jr., 20, of Ohio with second- degree murder. He is accused of slamming his car into counterprotesters who were leaving the area after police canceled the rally.
Fields, who allegedly fled the scene in his damaged car, was described by a former high school teacher as an admirer of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.
Wednesday’s vigil became a symbol of the community’s effort to stand up to hate. The Paramount Theater, which hosted the memorial service, livestreamed the ceremony.
Attendees were asked to wear purple, Heyer’s favorite color, in her memory.
Wednesday morning, President Trump tweeted, “Memorial service today for beautiful and incredible Heather Heyer, a truly special young woman. She will be long remembered by all!”
Heyer, who grew up in nearby Green County and worked at a law firm, was remembered by loved ones as a courageous believer in justice and equality. Family members said they hoped the memorial service would spread the message of her compassion.
Bro said she would prefer to grieve in private but felt compelled to try to follow her daughter’s example. “I miss her so, so much, but I’m going to make her death worth something,” Bro told the Associated Press.
Heyer’s boss, Larry Miller, said she was active in the firm’s bankruptcy practice and was like a family member to him.
“She’s very compassionate, she’s very precise, got a big heart, she wants to make sure that things are right. She cares about the people that we take care of. She’s just a great person,” he said.
Also killed Saturday were two Virginia State Police troopers aboard a helicopter that was providing video of the event before it broke off to lend support to a motorcade for Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe. The helicopter crashed outside Charlottesville. The cause of the crash was being investigated.
A funeral for trooper Berke M. M. Bates was scheduled for Friday, and a funeral for Lt. H. Jay Cullen, the helicopter’s pilot, was scheduled for Saturday.
“I miss her so, so much, but I’m going to make her death worth something.” Susan Bro, Heather Heyer’s mother