24 Hours in Charlottesville An Oral History of the Stand Against White Supremacy

by Neus, Nora

• ISBN13: 9780807011928
• ISBN10: 0807011924
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780807011942
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2023-07-18
• Publisher: Beacon Press
• More Book Details
• Purchase Benefits

Summary

A gripping account of racial justice activists who confronted violent white supremacists in Charlottesville, VA, and stirred the nation

On August 11 and 12, 2017, armed neo-Nazi demonstrators descended on the University of Virginia campus and downtown Charlottesville. When they assaulted antiracist counterprotesters, the police failed to intervene, and events culminated in the murder of counterprotestor Heather Heyer.

In this book, Emmy-nominated journalist and former Charlottesville resident Nora Neus crafts an extraordinary account from the voices of the students, faith leaders, politicians, and community members who were there. Through a vivid collage of original interviews, new statements from Charlottesville mayor Mike Signer and Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, social media posts, court testimony, and government reports, this book portrays the arrival of white supremacist demonstrators, the interfaith service held in response, the tiki torch march on the university campus, the protests and counterprotests in downtown Charlottesville the next day, and the deadly car attack. 24 Hours in Charlottesville will also feature never-before-disclosed information from activists and city government leaders, including Charlottesville mayor Mike Signer.

Author Biography

Nora Neus is an Emmy-nominated journalist at CNN. Neus field-produced Anderson Cooper’s coverage of the 2017 white nationalist riot in Charlottesville, Virginia. Before joining CNN, she worked as a local news reporter and fill-in anchor for the CNN affiliate in Charlottesville, WVIR NBC29. She is the coauthor of the YA graphic Muhammad Najem, War Reporter: How One Boy Put the Spotlight on Syria.

Table of Contents

Maps of Charlottesville
Author’s Note
Cast of Characters

PART 1: WARNING FLARES

ONE
“This isn’t just a bunch of weird LARPers on some dark corner of the internet.”

TWO
“Take away the permit, bad people are coming.”

PART 2: THE RIOTS

THREE
“Is somebody going to respond to this? Because this sounds really bad.”

FOUR
“We have a tip that something is going to happen on Grounds.”

FIVE
“These are racist people carrying torches.”

SIX
“If they could have killed us all right then, they would have.”

SEVEN
“Does this change what we’re going to do tomorrow?”

EIGHT
“We need to go confront literal Nazis.”

NINE
“This is fucked up as a football bat.”

TEN
“I remember thinking, Somebody is going to die today.”

ELEVEN
“It seemed like war in downtown Charlottesville.”

TWELVE
“It turned into an all-out battle.”

THIRTEEN
“Call the state of emergency.”

FOURTEEN
“It was like the resistance camp at the end of the world.”

FIFTEEN
“I heard a car revving.”

SIXTEEN
“I always wondered: Was she afraid? Did she see him coming?”

SEVENTEEN
“Where were the cops? How did this happen?”

EIGHTEEN
“Senseless deaths for a rally that should have never happened.”

Acknowledgments
Notes
Index