Charlottesville remembered: 'A battle for the soul of America'

On August 12, the small, serene city of Charlottesville, Virginia will mark the anniversary of a deadly white nationalist rally that shocked the nation.

Here, in their own words, some of those closest to the events of that weekend tell the story of what happened, why it happened, and what it meant to a city and a nation. You may find some language offensive.

PROLOGUE: 'WE KNEW WE WERE IN FOR A BAD DAY'

Ryan Kelly, photographer, Charlottesville Daily Progress It's important to understand that this didn't happen in a vacuum, it didn't just pop up and surprise everybody. It felt over the course of the summer that things were building up in Charlottesville.

Brennan Gilmore, Charlottesville resident People hadn't quite understood the level of violence or hatred or the numbers of people coming to town, but the town was very much aware. It was like a hurricane was coming.

Jalane Schmidt, University of Virginia professor, Black Lives Matter activist The propaganda that the alt-right had put out was martial in its imagery. It was a march on Charlottesville. It was very militaristic. We felt like we were going to be under siege.

Dr Michael Williams, surgeon, UVA hospital We got a plan in place in anticipation, but I got a fair amount of push-back from my colleagues in surgery. They said "This is going to be a big nothing."

Seth Wispelwey, local reverend It felt to me like a profound test. But there was no question about where I belonged and what I wanted to do.

Brenda Brown-Grooms, local reverend We'd been monitoring the social media posts of the alt-right and they were detailing their hopes for the weekend, hopes for inciting a race war in the country, so we knew it was going to be dire.

Jalane Schmidt The crazy thing is we tried to warn the city. We had infiltrated chat rooms, taken screenshots. We made six dossiers, presented them to police, the city council, anyone who would listen. We said, "This is not a First Amendment rally. They are literally coming to kill us."

Emily Gorcenski, student activist There were explicit calls for violence there. We presented them to the city in the hope they would shut the rally down before it began.

Rev Brenda Brown-Grooms The information we gave them fell on deaf ears.

Emily Gorcenski When that failed, we knew we were in for a bad day.

'NAZIS STARTED COMING OUT OF THE WOODWORK'

How it began - Other cities in America contended with their Confederate monuments and the legacy of slavery, but it would be Charlottesville, near the former capital of the Confederacy, that would bear the brunt of the controversy.

Jalane Schmidt In 2016 a young teenage activist here in Charlottesville started a petition to remove the Confederate monuments. At the same time, we had the Republican primary campaign heating up with Trump winning more and more states. Local white supremacists got upset about the efforts to remove the statues and they were fuelled by the feedback nationally, saying "This is OK, it's open season to be racist."

Zyahna Bryant, teenage activist I had to write a school paper about something I could change and I had been thinking about public spaces in Charlottesville. I thought it was important to draw attention to how Confederate imagery is violent and what it represents for people of colour. Eventually I turned my paper into a petition.

Wes Bellamy, Charlottesville councillor and former deputy mayor When I first started talking about moving the statues, people were livid, they hated hearing about it. I started getting racist abuse - "We're going to get you nigger," that kind of thing.

Zyahna Bryant For me, it's hard because there are no statues in Charlottesville that depict African-American heroes. And so for that reason alone, black people have nothing to look up to in our public spaces. We are not represented.

Jalane Schmidt Those statues were put up in the 1920s in order to edify the white public and they are still there for the edification of white people. And now people are shifting the reason. Now it's because they don't want to forget history?

Charles Weber, Charlottesville lawyer fighting the removal of the statues Our view was that the city didn't have the authority to do what they proposed to do. Aside from being magnificent works of art and places of beauty for the city, the statues are a memorial to war veterans. It's not in America's DNA to deny its own history.

Jalane Schmidt On 29 January 2017, the mayor called a press conference in front of the city hall. And he announced that Charlottesville was now the capital of the resistance. People cheered. That resonated with a lot of people, but it put a target on our backs.

Wes Bellamy The Nazis and Confederates started coming out of the woodwork. Then Jason Kessler came to light.

Jason Kessler, organiser, Unite the Right rally I wasn't really involved in local politics, I didn't find Charlottesville politics or any other politics very interesting. Then I was doing yard work one day for a friend and he happened to bring up the Robert E Lee statue and how the city was trying to tear it down. I thought it was symbolic of a lot of things happening in society.

Claire Gastañaga, executive director, ACLU Virginia Jason Kessler applied for a permit for a rally at Emancipation Park, some time last spring. The way the Charlottesville process works, a permit is granted automatically if there's no negative decision in 10 days.

Jason Kessler Shoot, the moment I put in the application didn't feel that eventful. After 10 days it was approved and I set about calling different people in the alternative media, on the internet. Some describe them as alt-right, some as alt-light.

Charles Weber Jason Kessler and Richard Spencer, both University of Virginia graduates, saw the argument over the statues as a way to promote their own cause. We were horrified by that.

Nikuyah Walker, counter-protester, now Charlottesville mayor People like Kessler and Spencer started to get a little leery of whether white supremacy would be maintained. That's what this was about: "How dare you, a primarily white council, vote to take down our statues?"

Jason Kessler Richard Spencer is a white nationalist. Personally I don't call myself a white nationalist. I consider myself a civil and human rights advocate, focused on the caucasian demographic.

Isaac Smith, former ally of Jason Kessler Kessler's idea was to try to unite the alt-right with the mainstream right, and get regular Republicans to show up.

Jason Kessler The moderate speakers did not want to be on the same stage as Richard Spencer, so it ended up being much more far right than I intended it to be.

Claire Gastañaga, executive director, ACLU Virginia People had been calling all that week for Kessler's permit to be revoked. After a series of closed meetings, Charlottesville council sent him a letter saying it was revoked but they would consider reissuing it if he moved the rally to a different location. He tweeted us at about 2am on the Tuesday before the weekend, asking if we would be interested in giving him legal assistance. There was nothing about his political positions that we agreed with, but there are rules and governments have to follow those rules. We filed a complaint on Thursday and the judge held a hearing on the Friday night, about 9pm, and ruled that the decision to revoke Kessler's permit was an unconstitutional decision based on the content of his speech. So the permit was reissued.

Walt Heinecke, University of Virginia professor We decided to apply for permits for counter-protests. I teach a class in citizenship so I thought it was time for me to put my money where my mouth was. We are in a battle for the soul of America at this point, and I thought it was time for people to step up.