Charlottesville Mother of rally victim urges mourners to fight injustice,
Mother of rally victim urges mourners to fight injustice in her daughter’s honour
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA.— The mother of the young woman mowed down while protesting against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., urged mourners at a memorial service Wednesday to “make my daughter’s death worthwhile” by confronting injustice the way she did.
“They tried to kill my child to shut her up. Well, guess what? You just magnified her,” said Susan Bro, receiving a standing ovation from the hundreds who packed a downtown theatre to remember 32-year-old Heather Heyer.
Heyer’s death on Saturday — and U.S. President Donald Trump’s insistence that “both sides” bear responsibility for the violence — continued to reverberate across the U.S., triggering fury among many Americans and soul-searching about the state of race relations in the country. The uproar has accelerated efforts in many cities to remove symbols of the Confederacy.
Hundreds of people gathered on the University of Virginia campus Wednesday night for a peaceful candlelight vigil against hate and violence.
Marchers peacefully assembled in the same place where hundreds of torch-carrying white nationalists marched Friday, when several fights broke out. That was followed Saturday by clashes between rally attendees and those protesting them in the city’s streets.
Video feeds show the group moving slowly through campus before singing spirituals and observing a moment of silence.
Earlier in the day, Heyer was eulo- gized as a woman with a powerful sense of fairness. The mourners, many of them wearing purple, her favourite colour, applauded as her mother urged them to channel their anger not into violence but into “righteous action.”
State troopers were stationed on the surrounding streets, but the white nationalists who had vowed to show up were nowhere to be seen among the residents, clergy and tourists outside the Paramount Theater, just blocks from where Heyer died.
Heyer, a white legal assistant from Charlottesville, was killed and19 others were injured Saturday when a car plowed into counter-protesters who had taken to the streets to decry what was believed to be the biggest gathering of white nationalists in the United States in at least a decade.
The hundreds of white nationalists — including neo-Nazis, skinheads and Ku Klux Klan members — had descended on Charlottesville after the city decided to remove a monument to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
The driver of the car, James Alex Fields Jr., a 20-year-old Ohio man described as an admirer of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, was arrested and charged with murder and other offences.
Trump tweeted for the first time about Heyer, calling her “beautiful and incredible” and a “truly special young woman.”
The White House did not respond to questions about whether the president had contacted Heyer’s family.
Charlottesville resident Danielle Notari, who was also outside the theatre, spoke through tears.
“We wanted to come say goodbye and pay our respects,” she said, her arms wrapped around her young daughter. Heyer’s family members and friends said her death would only inspire them to fight harder for justice.
“This is not the end of Heather’s legacy,” Bro said.
Two Virginia state troopers also died Saturday when their helicopter crashed. It was used to provide video of the rally before it was diverted to lend support for the governor’s motorcade. The funerals for Berke M.M. Bates and Lt. H. Jay Cullen are set for Friday and Saturday.