24 Hours in Charlottesville by Nora Neus

Author:Nora Neus [Neus, Nora]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Beacon Press
Published: 2023-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

“It seemed like war in downtown Charlottesville.”

SMASH CAINE-CONLEY, COFOUNDER, CONGREGATE C’VILLE: We decided that we were going to form a blockade on the stairs that go up to the park.

CHARLOTTESVILLE POLICE DEPARTMENT SERGEANT: That’s OK—they keep people out of that area, I’m fine with that.

SMASH CAINE-CONLEY: We were intending to block the stairs even if a group tried to get through. A group did indeed start marching toward us, and Seth and I were on the end of the line that was facing the park.

HEAPHY REPORT: [The white nationalists] marched up the stairs, shields first, and pushed through the line of clergy.

SMASH CAINE-CONLEY: They started marching toward our group, started pushing the front of our blockade with their shields and batons and trying to ram through us.

REV. SETH WISPELWEY, PASTOR AND COFOUNDER, CONGREGATE C’VILLE: I heard yelling—I don’t really want to say it, but I heard yelling, Kill the faggot priests. I also heard, Move the fuck aside, clergy, while they were pushing through.

And then the next thing I knew I was pushed, along with colleagues, into the bushes.

When I stood up and got my bearing again, a large man was just kind of standing over me and yelling, Fuck you, faggot over and over in my face.

SMASH CAINE-CONLEY: Somebody in our front line broke the line and let them through! I honestly couldn’t believe it. I was so stunned.

REV. SETH WISPELWEY: Part of the reason it caught us by surprise is there’s 30 state police officers right there.

INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CHIEFS OF POLICE AFTER-ACTION REVIEW: The Virginia State Police (VSP) dedicated approximately 600 sworn members to the event, the largest deployment in decades.1

REV. SETH WISPELWEY: And I’m standing next to Dr. West and he’s like, Oh my God, no one’s getting arrested today.2

SMASH CAINE-CONLEY: I was so pissed off. I didn’t wanna lose my cool and start cursing at my own folks while the white supremacists were there. So I waited ’til the white supremacists went through. The folks with us started trying to sing “This Little Light of Mine,” which was just really embarrassing to me. We’ve just been run over by group of white supremacists! They’re insulting us, calling us names, and you’re singing a child’s hymn? I was like, this is unreal to me.

After they kind of streamed through, I turned around and I yelled like, Why the fuck did that happen? How did we let them through? Why did we let them through?

And I pretty much said, If you’re not here to keep the discipline, then get off the line. Like if we’re gonna be here, we’re going to do what we said we came to do.

I think I was enraged for a few reasons. I think I was still feeling my regret from the night before and not showing up the way that I wanted to show up. And we’ve been training for months and here we’re doing our direct action and it failed and, in my mind, it failed miserably.

REV. SETH WISPELWEY:

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