Today marks the fifth anniversary of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that resulted in one death, numerous injuries and footage that shocked a nation and sparked major discussion due to various racial and nationalistic overtones.
Since the events of August 11 and 12, 2017, legal action has resulted in life imprisonment and millions of dollars in restitution after members of Unite the Right—described as a white supremacist group consisting of the alt-right, Klansmen, neo-Confederates and neo-Nazis—took to the streets with antisemitic chants including "blood and soil" and "Jews will not replace us."
The rally was conducted, according to group leaders and participants, to protest the removal of a statue of former Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The event brought together far-right extremists from at least 39 states, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and from other countries such as Canada, Sweden and South Africa.
In the years since the rally, key members of the group, including Richard Spencer, Jason Kessler and Christopher Cantwell, have been legally obligated to pay nine civil trial plaintiffs $25 million in compensatory and punitive damages for physical and emotional injuries.
Spencer, who said in 2020 that he voted for President Joe Biden, is the leader of the National Policy Institute and has been described as a prominent white nationalist. He has remained relatively quiet since his trial.
Kessler was a Unite the Right event organizer, while Cantwell was convicted of assaulting protesters.
On October 11, 2017, the lawsuit Sines v. Kessler was filed by attorneys Roberta Kaplan and Karen Dunn. It alleged that multiple individuals associated with Unite the Right had violated the 1871 Ku Klux Act and other Virginia state laws, seeking compensatory and punitive damages against each defendant.
Court records show that on July 9, 2018, a judge rejected the defendants' motion to dismiss the case. Four months later, the defendants were ordered to hand over devices and social media accounts as part of the discovery process.
On January 6, 2020, defendant Elliott Kline—also known as Eli Mosley—surrendered himself to U.S. Marshals. On May 26, 2020, defendants Kline, Matthew Heimbach, and Vanguard America were ordered to pay plaintiffs a collective $41,300.
Court records also indicate that Burt Colucci, leader of the neo-Nazi group National Socialist Movement, was ordered to turn in his devices in 2020.
On November 23, 2021, about one month after the trial began in the Western District of Virginia, an 11-person jury sided with the nine plaintiffs—consisting of students, clergy, protestors and innocent bystanders—who were injured in 2017.
Seven of those plaintiffs were directly injured as a result of the actions of James Fields Jr., who drove his car into a large group of peaceful protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer. Fields was found guilty of first-degree murder in December 2018 and later received multiple life sentences for state and federal charges.
The plaintiffs were April Muñiz, Chelsea Alvarado, Devin Willis, Elizabeth Sines, Marcus Martin, Marissa Blair, Natalie Romero, Reverend Seth Wispelwey and Thomas Baker.
"It has been a long four years since we first brought this case," plaintiffs said in a statement last November, according to the civil rights nonprofit Integrity First for America. "Today, we can celebrate the jury's verdict finally holding defendants like Jason Kessler, Richard Spencer and Christopher Cantwell accountable for what they did to us and to everyone else in the Charlottesville community who stood up against hate in August 2017.
"Our single greatest hope is that today's verdict will encourage others to feel safer raising our collective voices in the future to speak up for human dignity and against white supremacy."
The verdict was described as "a loud and clear message" in a joint statement made by Kaplan and Dunn, adding that the nation's laws "will not tolerate the use of violence to deprive racial and religious minorities of the basic right we all share to live as free and equal citizens."
Former President Donald Trump, who is weighing a 2024 presidential run, said following the Unite the Right rally that there were "very fine people on both sides."
In Bob Woodward's book Fear, Trump reportedly called his response "the biggest f**king mistake I've made."
Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe wrote an op-ed in 2019 saying Trump's comments in the aftermath showed that Trump "chose that day to come out as a white supremacist. He chose that day to come out as a dyed-in-the-wool, unapologetic racist."
The Democratic McAuliffe lost his reelection bid for governor in 2021 to Republican Glenn Youngkin.
Carla Hill, director of research for the ADL, told Newsweek that as of July 2022, there have been 131 white supremacist murders since the Unite the Right rally, including 21 shootouts with police. Through March, there have been 23 white supremacist terror plots, and through June, there have been 10,476 antisemitic incidents, Hill said.
She said that while many rally participants were not affiliated with any particular group, and many membered groups compose a small portion of extremist movements, the Unite the Right rally in 2017 "caused a major change in tactics."
"Overall, there was a retreat from preannounced public activity with focus turned towards anonymous activism such as podcasts, propaganda distributions and unannounced flash demonstrations," Hill said. "Blame and finger-pointing was rampant, and many groups refused to work together or support each other's events as they had in the months leading up to Unite the Right.
"This is not to say that the white supremacist movement is in decline. It isn't. New white supremacist groups and networks have formed since Unite the Right," Hill said. "But the alt-right, the organizing force behind Unite the Right, is much less visible today."
Hill also said that a series of violent attacks that followed Unite the Right has been troubling, including deadly white supremacist shooting rampages in Parkland, Florida; Pittsburgh; Poway, California; El Paso, Texas; and Buffalo, New York. She specifically mentioned the evolution of The Proud Boys, ideologies of "incel" individuals and the proliferation of conspiracy theories such as those commonly perpetrated by QAnon.
"It's a good reminder that the extremist landscape is ever changing," Hill added.
Update 08/11/2022, 12:05 p.m. ET: This article was updated with a statement and statistics from the ADL.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Nick Mordowanec is a Newsweek reporter based in Michigan. His focus is reporting on Ukraine and Russia, along with social ... Read more
