NATIONAL

L

eaders of white supremacist
organizations unapologetically
confirmed their racist and antise-
mitic views during the second week of
the Charlottesville trial. In polite, calm
responses to the plaintiffs’ lawyers, sev-
eral defendants expressed their beliefs
that Jews and people of color threaten
white civilization.
Professor Deborah Lipstadt, an
American historian and Dorot
Professor of Modern Jewish History and
Holocaust Studies at Emory University
in Atlanta, provided a detailed analysis
of how the words and symbols used by
the defendants expressed beliefs consis-
tent with those of Nazi Germany. She
explained that the phrase “Jews will not
replace us”— used in Unite the Right
marches — reflects white genocide/
white Christian replacement theory
that says Jews control others to destroy
white society.
Defendant Matthew Heimbach con-
firmed that he has stated online: “The
total destruction of Jewry is the only
way that we can ensure that we will no
longer be plagued by the enemy of all

time.” A video of defendant Robert Ray,
a neo-Nazi, shows him exhorting “Gas
the kikes” to a cheering crowd during
the Unite the Right rallies during Aug.
11-12, 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Protests and counter-protests were
organized that weekend in response
to the planned removal of a statue of
Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in
Charlottesville by local officials. The
civil lawsuit charges that the defendants
conspired to prevent individuals from
exercising their Constitutional rights to
protest peacefully and for injuring them
during the United the Right weekend.
White nationalists from multiple orga-
nizations marched in organized groups,
some with tiki torches, black clothing
and shields — terrorizing unarmed pro-
testers with racist and antisemitic slurs
and assaulting them with shields and
flag poles.
Fights broke out. But the most shock-
ing incident came at the hands of James
Alex Fields Jr., who drove his car into
a group of protesters, killing Heather
Heyer and injuring others.
Fields is serving a life sentence for

these crimes. Several men were convict-
ed of beating an African American man
that weekend. But there were no legal
repercussions for others who injured
and terrorized protesters.

HOLDING THEM ACCOUNTABLE
A nonprofit organization, Integrity First
for America, was formed to file a civil
lawsuit to hold the alleged perpetrators
accountable for their actions, which it
claims were organized and planned.
The civil suit is based primarily on
the Ku Klux Klan Act, a federal law
from 1871, which was passed in part
to protect African Americans in the
South from being denied their vote. The
law has been used more recently for
offenses that denied individuals their
Constitutional rights based on their
race.
As a civil suit, if the plaintiffs prevail,
the defendants — leaders of an array
of white supremacist and right-wing
nationalist groups — will be fined and
sanctioned by the court.
Some have already been sanctioned
— one receiving a jail sentence — for

The second week of Charlottesville
trial includes testimony by white
nationalists and Holocaust expert
Prof. Deborah Lipstadt.

White
Nationalists
Unapologetic

SHARI S. COHEN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

24 | NOVEMBER 18 • 2021