News
Trial of Unite the Right organizers begins Monday
Plaintiffs hope a decision against the defendants will lead to bankruptcy for many white supremacist groups
By Stratton Marsh
October 24, 2021
A civil trial filed against organizers of the Unite the Right rally is set to begin Monday, more than four years after the
events of Aug. 11 and 12, 2017. Plaintiffs seek to prove there was a conspiracy to commit racial violence during the rally.
The violence, suffering, and emotional distress that occurred in Charlottesville was a direct, intended, and foreseeable result of [the] Defendants unlawful conspiracy, the
complaint reads.
On Aug. 11, 2017, several hundred white supremacists
gathered with torches around the statue of Thomas Jefferson on the North side of the Rotunda, chanting White Lives Matter and Jews will not replace us. A group of counter-protestors waited for the alt-right marchers at the Jefferson statue, chanting Black Lives Matter and circling around with their backs to the statue and linking arms. The two groups confronted each other and a fight broke out before the police separated them. Several people were injured during the altercation.
The next day, the Unite the Right
rally drew hundreds of white supremacists and counter-protestors to Charlottesville. Organized in part by white supremacist and conspiracy theorist Jason Kessler, the rally brought hundreds of alt-right groups and individuals to Charlottesvilles Downtown Mall to protest City Councils
vote to remove the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in what is now known as Market Street Park.
The Lee statue was constructed in 1924 and was commissioned by Paul Goodloe McIntire, the namesake of the Universitys McIntire School of Commerce, McIntire Amphitheater and McIntire Department of Art. McIntire also bought Lee Park which was
renamed Market Street Park in 2018 for the statue to reside.
Some of the protestors moved to McIntire Park after law enforcement officials declared the rally an unlawful assembly. At McIntire Park, attendees then listened to speeches from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, Richard Spencer, founder of the white nationalist movement the alt-right and a
graduate of the University, and Mike Enoch, host of the alt-right podcast The Daily Shoah.
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Jury selection for the trial begins Monday, and opening arguments will start Wednesday. Due to the pandemic, only the judge, jury, courtroom officials, plaintiff, defendants and attorneys will be allowed in the courthouse. Journalists will watch from a separate room, while the public can listen to an audio recording