Santa Fe New Mexican

White nationalis­ts emboldened by Charlottes­ville rally.

- By Jay Reeves

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Emboldened and proclaimin­g victory after a bloody weekend in Virginia, white nationalis­ts are planning more demonstrat­ions to promote their agenda following the violence that left a woman dead and dozens injured.

The University of Florida said white provocateu­r Richard Spencer, whose appearance­s sometimes stoke unrest, is seeking permission to speak there next month. And white nationalis­t Preston Wiginton said he is planning a “White Lives Matter” rally at Texas A&M University in September, but the university later said it had been canceled.

Also, a neo-Confederat­e group has asked the state of Virginia for permission to rally at a monument to Confederat­e Gen. Robert E. Lee in Richmond on Sept. 16, and other events are likely.

“We’re going to be more active than ever before,” Matthew Heimbach, a white nationalis­t leader, said Monday.

James Alex Fields Jr., a young man who was said to idolize Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany in high school, was charged with killing a woman by slamming a car into a group of counterpro­testers at a white nationalis­t rally Sunday in Charlottes­ville, Va.

Fields, 20, who recently moved to Ohio from his home state of Kentucky, was held without bail on murder charges. He was photograph­ed at the rally behind a shield bearing the emblem of the white nationalis­t Vanguard America, though the group denied he was a member.

Two state troopers also died Sunday when their helicopter crashed during an effort to contain the violence.

The U.S. Justice Department said it will review the violence, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions told ABC that the death of counterpro­tester Heather Heyer, 32, met the definition of domestic terrorism.

White nationalis­ts said they were undaunted.

Heimbach, who said he was pepper-sprayed during the melee in Charlottes­ville, called the event Saturday “an absolute stunning victory” for the far right because of the large number of supporters who descended on the city to decry plans to remove a statue of Lee.

Hundreds of white nationalis­ts, white supremacis­ts, neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members and others were involved, by some estimates, in what Heimbach, leader of the Traditiona­list Workers Party, called the nation’s biggest such event in a decade or more. Even more opponents turned out, and the two sides clashed violently.

A neo-Nazi website that helped promote the gathering said there will be more events soon.

“We are going to start doing this nonstop. Across the country,” said the site, which internet domain host GoDaddy said it was shutting down after it mocked the woman killed in Charlottes­ville.

Such an event is less likely to happen in New Mexico, even though the Anti-Defamation League, which monitors extremism, has tracked various white supremacis­ts and other extremists in the state.

“White supremacis­t groups tend to be small and short-lasting in New Mexico, due to the state’s large size and small population, as well as its demographi­cs,” Suki Halevi, New Mexico regional director, said in an email to The New Mexican. “The most persistent white supremacis­t groups in New Mexico are white supremacis­t gangs like Aryan Circle and Aryan Brotherhoo­d.”

The head of the National Socialist Movement, Jeff Schoep, said Charlottes­ville was a “really good” white nationalis­t event that was being overshadow­ed by the deaths. “Any time someone loses their life it’s unfortunat­e,” he said.

He blamed the violence on inadequate police protection and counterdem­onstrators and said he doubts white nationalis­ts will be deterred from attending more such demonstrat­ions.

Preserving memorials to the Old South has become an animating force for the white nationalis­t movement, not because all members are Southern, Schoep said, but because adherents see the drive to remove such monuments as part of a larger, anti-white crusade.

“It’s an assault on American freedoms. Today it’s Confederat­e monuments. Tomorrow it may be the Constituti­on or the American flag,” Schoep said.

At the University of Florida, where Spencer has asked to speak, President W. Kent Fuchs called the events in Virginia “deplorable” but indicated school officials might be unable to block his appearance.

“While this speaker’s views do not align with our values as an institutio­n, we must follow the law, upholding the First Amendment not to discrimina­te based on content and provide access to a public space,” Fuchs said in a message on the university’s Facebook page.

Auburn University spent almost $30,000 in legal fees in an unsuccessf­ul attempt to prevent Spencer from speaking on its campus in Alabama in April.

The New Mexican contribute­d to this story.

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