The message was clear and resounding under overcast skies. Outnumbering a White a supremacists’ rally, counter-protestors representing a microcosm of American diversity expressed their opposition to racial bias as they gathered outside the White House a year after violence in Charlottesville Virginia.
“Hate has no home here,” a placard carried by a counter-protestor said in Lafayette Park outside the White House.
The counter-protestors – estimated to be more than a thousand – included people of diverse backgrounds and faiths converged to square off with a small White supermacists’ rally under the banner of “Unite the Right.”
The rally marked one year anniversary of violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, where Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old participant, was killed when a car rammed into the crowd.
The opposing rallies in Charlottesville on August 12, 2017 marked a rare occasion in recent decades when members belonging to neo-Nazis, skinheads and Ku Klux Klan openly staged a large demonstration. The nationalists were protesting removal of a monument to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a park. Analysts say the nationalists and supremacists feel emboldened by the 2016 election campaigns which inflamed racial tensions.
The rally in D.C. on Sunday saw contingents of Police to stave off the possibility of any clash or violence between the two groups. Despite visible tensions, the protests largely remained peaceful.
In Charlottesville, Virginia, Susan Bro, mother of Heather Heyer, spoke to the problem confronting the society.
“There’s so much healing to do,” Bro said, according to an AP report.
“We have a huge racial problem in our city and in our country. We have got to fix this, or we’ll be right back here in no time,” she added.
