UVA students, activists, community members, and clergy will reclaim the North Plaza of the Rotunda at an event scheduled for Saturday night.
The Rally for Justice, beginning at 7 p.m., will demand justice for those who have suffered at the hands of white supremacy.
Although the University has announced restricted access to this site, students, faculty, and supporters are nevertheless planning to march.
“On August 11th last year, I feared for my life while hundreds of Nazis surrounded me and my friends,” said Sophie Schectman, a UVA student and organizer with UVA Students United.
“We, the students around the statue, chose to confront their white supremacist ideology while UVA willing allowed them to march through our grounds, terrorizing us,” Schectman said. “The University of Virginia administration’s inaction that night emboldened white supremacists to be even more violent the next day on August 12. No number of ‘healing vigils’ or ‘unity concerts’ can ever rectify what happened that night on UVA’s campus.”
Schectman listed items of “real action” from the UVA administration that are specifically being demanded, including banning from Grounds all identifiable white supremacists who participated in the torch attack, paying for all the medical bills of survivors of the attack, and strongly condemning white supremacy and vowing to combat it in all its forms.
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