Athens County man ‘ felt compelled’ to protest
William Burke is home in Athens County, just days after he was injured when struck by a car while protesting white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia.
In an email interview, his wife, Annie Burke, said her husband was “very fortunate.”
“His left side is bruised, scraped, swollen and very painful with limited mobility,” she wrote. “He does not have any fractures. We are hoping he doesn’t have torn ligaments, etc.”
She wrote that the five-hour drive home was very hard on him, and that she had a great deal of difficulty getting him out of the car. He is using a cane.
“Please don’t forget there are so many others who have been hurt by this uprising of hate,” she wrote.
Mr. Burke, who turned 40 on Sunday, was hospitalized at the University of Virginia hospital after he was one of 19 injured during the car attack on Saturday. One woman, Heather Heyer, 32, of Charlottesville, was killed.
The Burkes live in the small town of Hockingport in Athens County. Mrs. Burke said her husband had attended an International Socialist Organization conference in Chicago in July and heard that other members were going to meet in Charlottesville this past weekend to counter the whitenationalist rally.
“He felt compelled to join them as we as a family strongly oppose the agenda of the socalled white supremacists,” she wrote.
Mrs. Burke wrote that this was her husband’s first major counterprotest. She said she and her husband had been participating with a local grassroots group called Torch CAN DO, which opposes the dumping of hydraulic fracturing waste in their community.
“Our protests with this group have led us to being acquainted with this type of activism which has led Bill to go to Charlottesville about an issue important to him,” she wrote.
“We have many family and friends who are people of color, and we are appalled by the fact that there is so much hatred and bigotry,” Mrs. Burke wrote. “We know many don’t think protesting is important but we believe that sometimes it is important to be willing to stand up and be counted.”