A march of love
Black Lives big: It’s ‘weapon’ vs. hate groups
A local Black Lives Matter leader says his group has a new weapon to use against hate groups wreaking havoc across the country — love.
Bronx activist Hawk Newsome said the new weapon will be on display when a coalition of groups start their march next Friday from New York City to Washington for an Aug. 12 protest to mark last year’s violent Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va. .
Hundreds of white supremacists and counterprotesters clashed at the Unite the Right rally before a car plowed into a crowd of people, killing 32year-old Heather Heyer.
Organizers behind the United the Right rally will be in D.C. to mark the anniversary, and Newsome said he wants to be there with a message of love to drown out the hateful rhetoric.
“Our goal is not to confront them physically, but to create a wave of love around them,” Newsome said, “to say there is no place in our society for bigoted hate groups.”
Newsome was among the Black Lives Matter protesters on hand in 2017 when alt-right groups, neo-Confederates, Klansmen and neo-Nazis gathered in Charlottesville for their rally against the removal of Confederate monuments in that city.
Newsome said he was pelted with rocks as he held a bullhorn and spoke in opposition to the right-wing rhetoric.
“It was a war zone,” Newsome said.
President Trump later called the armed, torch-carrying protesters, some clad in Nazi gear, "very fine people" looking to protect their history.
The march from New York will include rallies in different cities each night promoting racial harmony as it makes its way to the nation’s capital.
It will culminate in a rally at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, Newsome said.
At the same time, Jason Kessler, the primary organizer of the deadly Charlottesville rally, will be hosting a “white civil rights” rally at Lafayette Square near the White House.
“We’re going to be focusing exclusively on Washington D.C. on Aug. 12,” Kessler tweeted Tuesday.
The National Park Service has approved Kessler’s application for the rally, but a permit for the event hasn’t been issued.
Kessler sued the city of Charlottesville this month for refusing to give him a permit to hold an event to commemorate last year’s bloody rally.
Kessler’s suit sought a court order compelling the city to give him a permit, claiming Charlottesville was trampling on his First Amendment free speech rights.
He withdrew his lawsuit Tuesday after conferring with his lawyers.
In announcing the march from New York City, Newsome said that — a year after Charlottesville — the country hasn’t “gotten any closer to healing the racial divide in this country.”
“If anything, we are further from it,” he said. “We must come together and demand that each citizen take action to end hatred in all its forms.”
Newsome said his group will “demonstrate how the principles of love and unity can overcome hatred.”
“We have one goal, and that is to stand together in unity and show the world that love trumps hate,” Newsome wrote.