A year after deadly alt-right rally, wounds are still raw

Sometimes Alfred Wilson still has to take a moment to collect himself after he pulls open files at the law firm where he works and sees Heather Heyer’s handwriting.

“I get choked up and have to gather myself before I talk to the client,” said Wilson, who hired Heyer, the 32-yearold paralegal killed nearly a year ago in a car attack during a violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The rally that left Heyer dead and dozens more injured proved to be a watershed moment, both for the racist, fringe “alt-right” movement, and for the city itself. In the year since, many residents like Wilson say the wounds haven’t healed. Oth- ers say the violence has laid bare divisions over deeper issues of race and economic inequality.

“One of my hugest gripes with last year with the peo- ple of this town was that peo- ple, mostly white folks, kept saying, ‘This isn’t Charlottesville,’” said Brenda BrownGrooms, a local pastor and activist. “I wonder what planet they live on. This is exactly who we are.”

A Charlottesville native, born in the segregated base- ment of the University of Virginia hospital, BrownGrooms said white suprem- acy was present in Char- lottesville long before the rally and is the “elephant in the room” the city must deal with.

Activists have pushed lead- ers to address the city’s legacies of racism and slavery, its affordable housing crunch and the police department’s relationship with the black community, among other issues, since the Aug. 12 rally.

The crowd was eventu- ally forced to disperse but a car that authorities say was driven by a man fas- cinated with Adolf Hitler later plowed into a crowd of peaceful counterprotesters. The day’s death toll rose to three when a state police heli- copter that had been monitoring the event crashed, killing two troopers.

In the year since, the city has taken steps toward meeting some of the activists’ demands, despite resistance on some issues from the Republican-controlled state legislature. Lawmak- ers defeated every bill Char- lottesville supported in the rally’s aftermath, including measures dealing with cities’ abilities to remove Confederate monuments.

Responding in part to calls for a closer look at stop-andfrisk policies that dispropor- tionately affect black resi- dents, the city established a new Police Civilian Review Board. The city also has approved funds for affordable housing and workforce development.

Meanwhile, there’s been a churn in leadership. The city attorney took a new job, the city manager’s contract was not renewed, a spokeswoman quit and the police chief, 50 at the time, retired after less than two years on the job.

The five-person city council has two new faces, and the group picked a different mayor, Nikuyah Walker, a black woman who ran as an independent in the staunchly Democratic town and was previously one of the council’s strongest critics.

Walker has clashed publicly with other council members on multiple issues, such as hiring an interim city manager. She recently took to social media to criticize the candidate, the way he was selected and her fellow councilors’ behavior.

The council’s drama doesn’t seem to affect most residents, who “just go on with our lives and watch with quiet amusement,” said Charles “Buddy” Weber, an attorney and longtime resident involved in a lawsuit seeking to stop the city from removing the Lee monument. Weber said that not everyone in Charlottesville agrees on the extent and nature of the city’s problems.

While the city’s been struggling to find its footing, some alt-right leaders are faltering. The rally violence proved a costly debacle for leading figures such as white nationalist Richard Spencer and others who are fighting lawsuits. Many in the movement have been booted from mainstream internet platforms.

Only one organizer of last summer’s rally seems intent on publicly marking the anniversary. Jason Kessler, a Charlottesville resident and UVA graduate, sued the city after it denied him a permit for an anniversary event. Kessler recently abandoned his lawsuit, but he vowed to press ahead with plans for a Sunday rally in Washington, D.C.