Tag

#white-supremacy

2 incidents

August 12, 2017 Civil Rights

Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern

Charlottesville: Trump's Defense of White Supremacists After the Unite the Right Rally

The August 12, 2017 Unite the Right rally drew hundreds of neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, and white nationalists to Charlottesville. A rally participant drove a car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing Heather Heyer. Trump initially blamed 'many sides,' then under pressure condemned white supremacists, then two days later reinstated the 'very fine people on both sides' framing in a combative press conference. The statements were widely understood as a signal of presidential sympathy to white nationalist movements.

Sources: 5

August 12, 2017 Updated August 15, 2017 Civil Rights

Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern

Charlottesville: 'Very Fine People on Both Sides' After Neo-Nazi Violence

The Unite the Right rally was organized by neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups, included marchers with torches chanting 'Jews will not replace us' on the night of August 11, and included violence against counter-protesters on August 12 before James Alex Fields Jr. drove into the crowd. Fields was later convicted of first-degree murder and federal hate crimes. Trump's August 15 press conference response defended those attending the rally as 'people who were very fine people' who were there because they 'protested the taking down of a statue' of Robert E. Lee, and drew a moral equivalence between the white supremacist rally and counter-protesters. Republican leaders including Paul Ryan, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and both former President Bushes publicly criticized the 'both sides' framing.

Sources: 4

Charlottesville white-supremacy civil-rights first-term violence