“We can band together and stop the screaming and lower the temperature,” Biden said. “Because without unity there is no peace – only bitterness and anger.”
In interviews this week, Charlottesville activists, religious leaders and civil rights groups who survived the events of 2017 urged Mr. Biden and the Democratic Party to go beyond unity as the ultimate political goal and prioritize a sense of justice that the historically excluded. When Mr Biden called Mrs Bro on the day he entered the 2019 presidential race, she urged him on his political commitments to correct racial inequalities. She declined to support him and focused more on supporting the anti-racism movement than on any individual candidate.
Local leaders say this is the legacy of the Summer of Hate as the white supremacist actions and violence of 2017 in Charlottesville are well known. When the election of Mr. Trump and the violence that followed pierced the myth of a racial America, especially among white liberals, these leaders committed themselves to the long arc of protecting democracy from white supremacy and misinformation.
“We were the canary in the coal mine,” said Jalane Schmidt, an activist and professor who teaches at the University of Virginia and who participated in activism in 2017. Comparing the current political moment with the aftermath of the civil war, she formulated the decision to join Mr Biden’s government either as a commitment to profound changes similar to reconstruction or as part of the compromise that brought it to an end.
“We have a big political party that is too big and supports undemocratic practices, the suppression of voters and the indulgence of these conspiracy theories,” said Dr. Schmidt, referring to Republicans. “So healing? Unit? You can’t do that with people who don’t adhere to basic democratic principles. “
Rev. Phil Woodson, the associate pastor of the First Methodist United Church, who was among the counter-protesters who stood up to the mob in 2017, said: “As much as Charlottesville may have been the impetus for his presidential campaign, Joe Biden did not do it in Charlottesville. “
