What began as a local effort to protect a symbol of white supremacy in Charlottesville, Virginia, has become what may be the largest gathering of “pro-white” demonstrators in the United States for well over a decade at this weekend’s “Unite the Right” rally.

Following months of public debate, the Charlottesville city council voted in February to remove a statue of General Robert E. Lee from a downtown park. ‘Alt-right’ leader Richard Spencer led a white supremacist protest in May and the KKK rallied in July against the statue’s removal. Local blogger Jason Kessler started organizing a “Unite the Right” rally to occur on August 12th to express support for leaving the statue where it is—in the middle of Lee Park (now named Emancipation Park). The neo-Confederate League of the South promoted the rally in hopes of “an excellent turnout of Southern nationalists:”

In response to the Alt-Right’s peaceful demonstration in support of the Lee Monument on May 13th, the City of Charlottesville and roving mobs of Antifa have cracked down on the First Amendment rights of conservatives and right wing activists. They have threatened our families, harassed our employers and tried to drive us from public spaces with threats of intimidation. We are not afraid. You will not divide us. This is an event which seeks to unify the right-wing against a totalitarian Communist crackdown, to speak out against displacement level immigration policies in the United States and Europe, and to affirm the right of Southerners and white people to organize for their interests just like any other group is able to do, free of persecution.

With hundreds of people expected to attend the rally as well as thousands of counterprotestors, the city announced on Monday that the rally had to move to the larger McIntire Park. Kessler refused to budge, insisting the rally needed to be held at the site of the statue because its removal is “about white genocide. It’s about the replacement of our people, culturally and ethnically.”

For the rally, which Kessler has said is meant “to destigmatize Pro-White advocacy,” he has gathered a formidable roster of alt-right white nationalist activists who are charged with uniting the American right-wing:

Rally Organizer:

Jason Kessler: Right-wing blogger and “pro-white” activist; intent on protecting Confederate monuments; has committed assault and allegedly been assaulted in his quest to protect Lee’s statue Warlocks Motorcycle Club: violent; “whites only” motorcycle gang that is providing security for Kessler



Rally Speakers: