Bear witness to this stomach-churning, previously unreleased footage of the violence in Charlottesville
A few weeks ago, when a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, erupted in violence, the internet was flooded with photos, videos, and anecdotes from protestors down on the front lines. Suddenly, the hate that long burbled beneath the surface in America was laid bare for all to see. With the country still reeling in the aftermath of those events, it’s important we use all the tools at our disposal to not forget that that hate is still there.
That’s the thinking behind this 27-minute video chronicling the violence in Charlottesville, starting with the tiki torch march on August 11 and ending with aftermath of the following day’s vehicle attack that resulted in the death of activist Heather Heyer. Assembled by subMedia, a video production ensemble that “aims to promote anarchist and anti-capitalist ideas, and aid social struggles through the dissemination of radical films and videos,” the stomach-churning footage shows just how chaotic things were on the ground that day as protestors came face-to-face with self-proclaimed fascists and ardent white supremacists. Much like the Vice report that used raw footage and the white supremacists’ own voices to such effective ends, the footage here is most damning through the language used, the sound of individual voices waging nothing less than a race war.
subMedia provides the following context for the video:
This previously unreleased 4K footage shows in more detail a time line of events. Starting with the tiki torch incident, then on to the fights the next day, then ending with the terrorist attack. This includes footage of a nearly fatal hate crime committed within police purview, in a parking garage next to the police station. It also documents the unwillingness of police to step in and stop the violence that day. Watch how many times our reporter asks police why they are not stopping the fights. Please help us share this and get it out to as many people as possible.
While nearly every second of this footage is difficult to watch, it’s an important record of a brutal reality. Hopefully, it can be used as a tool to not only remember the events of that day Charlottesville, but inspire us to make sure they’re never allowed to happen again.