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One Year After Charlottesville

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

It began a year ago this weekend. Hundreds of white nationalists carrying tiki torches marched onto the campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) You will not replace us.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Chants of you will not replace will us morphed into, Jews will not replace us. The white nationalists were met by a much smaller group of counterprotesters, UVA students who had formed a circle around the statue of Thomas Jefferson. Chaos followed.

(SOUNDBITE OF SHOUTING)

GARCIA-NAVARRO: The Unite the Right rally the next day, August 12, would engulf the city.

(SOUNDBITE OF WHISTLE)

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Sticks, punches, flying bottles. That morning, a year ago today, local residents, churchgoers and counterdemonstrators clashed with white nationalists and militia members. The police, trying to disperse them, and then...

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A car plowing through counterprotesters down this crowded street.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: A man drove his car into a group of counterprotesters, killing Heather Heyer and injuring more than a dozen. Then-Virginia-Governor Terry McAuliffe later that day.

TERRY MCAULIFFE: And I have a message to all the white supremacists and the Nazis who came into Charlottesville today. Our message is plain and simple - go home. You are not wanted in this great commonwealth. Shame on you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.