Charlottesville mobilises in protest against violence by white supremacists; Sessions calls it ‘domestic terrorism’

“We learn love, not hate,” read a card pinned to a single orchid placed at the feet of an imposing statue of Thomas Jefferson at the University of Virginia (UVA). The violence on the campus, unleashed by white supremacists who descended there on Friday night, took the community by surprise and fresh graffiti denouncing racism had appeared over the weekend.

“The events on Friday night were completely unexpected. Their rally was announced for Saturday,” said Sankaran Venkataraman, Professor of Business Administration at the UVA. “In the last 20 years that I have been here, I have not seen anything like this.”

Heather Heyer, a 32-year old legal assistant, was killed when a 20-year old man allegedly drove his car into the crowd. Nineteen people have been injured in various incidents.

Racists and neo-Nazi groups had assembled in the town to protest the proposed removal of the statue of a confederate general, one that invokes memories of racial oppression.

Larry Goedde Jr. grew up in Charlottesville, and had moved to Canada 11 years ago before returning only last week — “to a different America”, he said. He makes and repairs guitars for a living, and the first week of his new beginning in his old city turned out to be eventful on Saturday when he was targeted by the nationalist crowd. “A group suddenly jumped off a pick up truck, slammed me on to the pavement and started stomping all over me,” he recalled. The same group then drove around the town and attacked many others. “The crowd had come from all over — from Florida, Texas, North Carolina... there was hardly anyone from Virginia itself,” Mr. Goedde Jr. said.

He says he stopped a man who was pointing a machine gun at a family of four including children sometime earlier that day. “They wanted to create terror. But by the end of it all, those with the guns were on the defensive. They had their guns strapped on to them, but their back to the wall. They realised their bluff was called,” Mr. Goedde said, ruing that he perhaps missed some “best years of America”.

UVA and the town of Charlottesville is today a bastion of progressive politics in America, but its history is as complex as the fact that Jefferson, who wrote the words “all men are created equal” into the decoration of American independence, owned dozens of slaves, explained Daniel Ehnbom, director of the Center for South Asian Studies at UVA. “This separated the African American part from the white part of the town during years of segregation,” he said, pointing to a depression, a narrow water stream.

There were separate schools for the Whites and the Blacks, and when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the practice, the State of Virginia ordered schools closed rather than combine them in the 1950s. The university began admitting African American students in 1950s, but it took another two decades before women were admitted across courses.

Those gains of racial and gender justice over centuries are are now under threat, said Mr. Ehnbom, an expert on South Asian art history, pointing out that the violence over the weekend is a sign of the political turmoil around the country. Another professor at the university, who did not want to be named, said the surprise attack on Friday night was inspired by the American Right’s contempt for the liberal university system itself. “They think universities are a problem. And the fact that there is resistance to their politics here also allows them to have a showdown, violence and national publicity,” he pointed out. Mr. Ehnbom agreed.

President Donald Trump, who had on Saturday sought to equate the racist rioters with the protesters objecting to their agenda, had not amended his position until Monday morning, despite the wide outrage sparked by his remarks. Vice President Mike Pence, meanwhile, was more forthright. “We have no tolerance for hate and violence, white supremacists or neo-Nazis or the KKK,” Mr. Pence said at a press conference in Colombia. However, he defended the statement by Mr. Trump which he said was “clear” and “unambiguous”. Meanwhile, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has ordered a federal probe into the violence, told a Monday morning TV show that it fitted the definition of terrorism.

Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier — an African American — was at the receiving end of Mr. Trump’s ire after he demanded stronger response on the issue. Mr. Frazier quit the President’s manufacturing council, protesting against the inadequate response from Mr. Trump. “America’s leaders must honour our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy,” Mr. Frazier said in a statement.

Mr. Trump denounced him, posting on Twitter that now he will have “more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!”