The mother of slain activist Heather Heyer didn't take issue with Joe Biden's 2020 campaign announcement in which he invoked an attack at a rally in Charlottesville that killed her daughter.

"This is politics. This is what people do, and he brought up an important issue," Susan Bro said Friday on CBSN. "I wasn't particularly dismayed about it."

In a video announcing his presidential run that was released Thursday, Biden heavily referenced the 2017 white supremacist rally where Heyer was struck by a car and killed. The former vice president didn't mention Heyer by name, which her mother, Bro, said is understandable given that the two didn't talk until after the video's release.

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Bro said Biden reached out to her Thursday afternoon, and that the ad was hardly discussed in their conversation.

Susan Bro looks at mementos of her daughter in her office in Charlottesville. Brian Snyder/REUTERS

"The issue is about hate. It's not about Heather," said Bro, who is co-founder of the Heather Heyer Foundation. "We can remember Heather as someone who dealt with the hate but I mean this is someone running for office who has addressed an issue that needs to be brought up."

Bro said she was told she was "dreadfully upset" about the video and "all sorts of things that were simply not true."

"I don't even know who started that rumor," she said.

Bro said that to prevent the type of attack that killed her daughter "we have to deal with the root causes of it, which is a great, long history of racial disparity and inequity in Charlottesville."

She pointed to Charlottesville Mayor Nikuyah Walker, who has made repeated calls to discuss issues like systemic oppression and inequality. "I do think that we have to talk," Bro said. "I think avoiding talking about uncomfortable issues is not OK."