The rally and resulting death and injuries resulted in a backlash against white supremacist groups in the United States. Trump later stated (in the same statement) that "I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally–but you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists". This first statement and his subsequent defenses of it, in which he also referred to "very fine people on both sides", were widely criticized as implying a moral equivalence between the white supremacist protesters and the counter-protesters. In his initial statement following the rally, Trump condemned the "display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides". President Donald Trump's remarks on Charlottesville generated negative responses. The following year, Fields pleaded guilty to 29 federal hate crimes in a plea agreement to avoid the death penalty in this trial.
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Fields fled the scene in his car but was arrested soon afterward he was tried and convicted in Virginia state court of first-degree murder, malicious wounding, and other crimes in 2018, with the jury recommending a sentence of life imprisonment plus 419 years. deliberately rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters about a 1⁄ 2 mile (800 m) away from the rally site, killing Heather Heyer and injuring 35 other people. At around 1:45 p.m., self-identified white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr. Within an hour, at 11:22 a.m., the Virginia State Police declared the rally to be an unlawful assembly. On the morning of August 12, Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency, stating that public safety could not be safeguarded without additional powers. The rally turned violent after protesters clashed with counter-protesters, resulting in more than 30 injured.
The rally occurred amid the controversy generated by the removal of Confederate monuments by local governments following the Charleston church shooting in 2015, where a white supremacist shot and killed nine black members, including the minister (a state senator), and wounded others. The rally sparked a national debate over Confederate iconography, racial violence, and white nationalism. Lee from Charlottesville's former Lee Park. The organizers' stated goals included the unification of the American white nationalist movement and opposing the proposed removal of the statue of General Robert E.
Some groups chanted racist and antisemitic slogans and carried weapons, Nazi and neo-Nazi symbols, the Valknut, Confederate battle flags, Deus vult crosses, flags, and other symbols of various past and present anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic groups. Marchers included members of the alt-right, neo-Confederates, neo-fascists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and far-right militias. The Unite the Right rally was a white supremacist rally that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, from August 11 to 12, 2017. 2 state troopers died in an accidental helicopter crash.1 counterprotester killed by participant in vehicle-ramming attack.Various alt-right, neo-Nazi, neo-fascist, white supremacist, white nationalist, Ku Klux Klan, neo-Confederate, Identitarian and other far-right groups Protest the decision of Charlottesville City Council to order removal of Confederate monuments and memorials from public spaces.Promotion of white supremacist, alt-right, neo-Nazi, and white nationalist ideologies.Rally participants preparing to enter Lee Park in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12, 2017, carrying Neo-Confederate flags, Confederate battle flags, Gadsden flags, a Nazi flag, and a flag depicting Mjölnir