August 11th and 12th Timeline

August 11th and 12th Timeline

Timeline of important events leading up to the white supremacists rallies on August 11th and 12th.

Tucker Wilson, Historian for the Guides Service at the time of these rallies, made up a timeline of the weekend as well as some underlying events leading up to the rally. He stated that "this timeline is meant to be a cursory understanding of these events, used to give tourists a brief rundown of these events. It also includes resources for further research on the topic"

08/22/2017

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1920’s- Infamous hate group called Ku Klux Klan (KKK) enjoys its peak membership, numbering
around 4 million nationwide.
1921- President Edwin Alderman accepts a gift from a local chapter of the KKK towards UVA of
$1000, which roughly translates to $13,000 with inflation.
1924 - A statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee is erected in Charlottesville’s Lee Park
near today’s downtown area.
2012 - Charlottesville City Councilwoman Kristin Szakos, after hearing a lecture from historian
Edward Ayers on the challenges of what monuments say about past and present attitudes, asks
whether Charlottesville should continue to support Confederate monuments in parks, sparking
public debate.
2015 - Debates over Confederate flags and monuments in public places appear in many
Southern states. In Texas, the Supreme Court rules in favor of banning Confederate license
plates, and in South Carolina, debate appears after Charleston shooter Dylann Roof is revealed
to be a White nationalist.
Mar. 21, 2016 - Charlottesville mayor Mike Signer releases statement creating special task force
to investigate public opinions and options to resolve the Confederate statue issue. This
statement coincides with local high schooler Zyhana Bryant’s petition to remove the statue.
April 17, 2017 - Charlottesville City Council votes 3-2 to remove the Lee statue, with plans of
selling it to an educational institution, museum, or non-profit, and votes unanimously to rename
Lee Park (later renamed to Emancipation Park based on public submission). The city also
enacts plans to rename Jackson Park, named after Confederate general Thomas ‘Stonewall’
Jackson, to Justice Park.
March 24, 2017 - Virginia’s Sons of Confederate Veterans and 11 Charlottesville citizens sue
the City of Charlottesville to block the statue’s removal based on its status as a historical
landmark. The judge in the case later issues an injunction to delay the statue’s removal until a
further hearing in November.
March 31, 2017- Congressman Tom Garrett holds a town hall at Garrett Hall and Jason Kessler
and other white supremacists congregate outside, clashing with anti-Garrett protesters. Kessler,
a Charlottesville resident, has been on Grounds and petitioned for space to hold a white
supremacist rally on Grounds. Space is reserved for students and faculty.
May 14, 2017 - Torch-wielding protesters, led by White nationalist Richard Spencer, protest the
statue’s possible removal in Emancipation Park. The recurrence of public appearances and
rallies of white nationalists falls in line with what the Southern Poverty Law Center identifies as a
quantifiable rise in far-right extremism (i.e. neo-Nazism, white nationalism).
July 8, 2017 - roughly 50 members of the North Carolina chapter of the Ku Klux Klan gather in
Justice Park to protest the statue’s planned removal. They are met with roughly 1,000
counter-protesters, and the crowd is eventually disbanded by police forces using tear gas.
August 7, 2017 - Charlottesville City Council approves White nationalist Jason Kessler’s permit
for the ‘Unite the Right’ rally under the condition that it be moved from Emancipation Park to
McIntire Park, a less central location, for security reasons. That Friday, with the help of the
ACLU, a judge rules in Kessler’s favor, moving the protest back to Emancipation Park.
August 11, 2017 - Roughly 400 torch-wielding protesters march to the University Rotunda and
Lawn the night before the scheduled rally. They march to gather around the statue of Thomas
Jefferson on University Avenue, but are met by counter protesters encircling the statue. A fight
breaks out and police break up the crowd. President Teresa Sullivan later released a statement
saying that the alt-right white supremacists gave her administration “contradictory and
misleading details about events, locations, routes, and timing.”
9:00 am, August 12, 2017 - ‘ Unite the Right’ white supremacists begin gathering in McIntire
Park, and are met with growing crowds of counter protesters.
11:00 am, August 12, 2017 - Both groups move to Emancipation Park, where violence soon
erupts. After several barricades surrounding the event are knocked over and police are forced to
retreat, police forces declare the event an unlawful assembly and disperse the crowds by noon.
At this same time, the City of Charlottesville declares a state of emergency. Governor Terry
McAuliffe follows with his own declaration of a state of emergency about an hour after.
2:00 pm, August 12, 2017 - As small crowds of counter-protesters continue to demonstrate
downtown, a gray sports car drives head-on into a crowd of people. 19 people are injured, and
32-year-old Heather Heyer is killed. The police later detain the driver, who is currently being
charged with second-degree murder. The Department of Justice announces the next day they
will open a civil rights investigation into these actions as a hate crime.
5:00 pm, August 12, 2017 - A state trooper helicopter crashes while assessing security at the
ongoing protest. Two police officers, Lieutenant H. Jay Cullen and Trooper-Pilot Berke M.M.
Bates, were killed. The crash was caused by a ‘technical failure’ unrelated to the events of the
day.
August 13, 2017- An impromptu vigil is held at the site of the prior day’s fatal crash and
hundreds pay respect to the memory of Heather Heyer with flowers and messages of support.
August 16, 2017- Several thousand people participate in a march tracing the route of white
supremacists just days before. The vigil was spread solely through word of mouth and text
(avoiding social media) and galvanized thousands of community members, students, and
faculty.
August 21, 2017- Black Student Alliance, Minority Rights Coalition, and others hold “March to
Reclaim our Grounds” with space for students to speak and a list of demands for the
administration. President Teresa Sullivan is in attendance to hear demands as well as hundreds
of University community members.
Further resources for factual retelling of events:
Note: These do not include any of the spectacular opinion articles written by UVA students,
staff, alumni and civil rights thought leaders across the country. If you are looking for
recommendations to help bolster the way you wish to talk about this on tour, let me know. Also,
if there is information you cannot find reported, the University is conducting an audit to figure out
exactly what happened and how to adjust policy to prevent such events recurring in the future:
- https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/us/white-nationalists-rally-charlottesville-virginia.ht
ml
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/inside-a-day-of-violence-terror-in-charlottesvill
e/2017/08/15/d5fc63ec-81f4-11e7-9e7a-20fa8d7a0db6_story.html?utm_term=.27d8aa29
7558
- https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/13/us/charlottesville-rally-protest-statue.html
- https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/13/us/politics/charlottesville-sessions-justice-departme
nt.html?_r=0
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/after-charlottesville-colleges-reassessing-safet
y-plans/2017/08/21/0f67c696-8644-11e7-96a7-d178cf3524eb_story.html?utm_term=.de
a53613d7f9
- http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2017/08/thousands-denounce-recent-violence-with-c
andlelit-march-at-uva
- http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2017/08/sullivan-says-there-were-contradictory-andmisleading-
details-about-white-nationalist-torchlit-march
- http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2017/08/thousands-denounce-recent-violence-with-c
andlelit-march-at-uva