Introduction
Clubs, rifles, pepper spray, fist fights, battle armor, shields with tribal crest, side arms, helicopters, pipes, emergency medical units, flags, bottles, riot police, knives, weaponized vehicles and more. It was all on display in what history may record as the "Battle of Charlottesville."
When the clashes ended 35 people were hospitalized, a 32 year-old woman was killed, and two Virginia State troopers monitoring the event died in a helicopter crash.
The Battle of Charlottesville will go down as a legacy moment in the Alt-White movement. The significance of the Battle of Charlottesville 2017, does not reside with the events that transpired on August 12. It was the orchestrated three-month campaign that culminated with a dramatic street clash that foreshadowed a long-term presence of white nationalist/militia movement, just as the Stormfront hoped for.
The analysis of this site is that from the standpoint of the militant Ethno-Nationalists and "1488" wings of the Alt-White, the "Battle of Charlottesville" was a critical success. Together, they represent the movement's "Confrontationist" wing, schooled in the arts of incendiary rhetoric, high propaganda, and direct action.
The subsequent fallout from the "Battle" which centered on Tribal Leader Trump's defense of the 1488's and confrontationist actions bought unprecedented attention to the Alt-Right and even a martyr who committed vehicular homicide. It was more than they could have ever hoped for.
The Battle of Charlottesville
Since the January 2017 "Heilgate Incident" when Richard Spencer ended his conference by chanting Hail Our People, Hail Trump, Hail Victory and received a "Sieg Heil" Nazi salute, the Confrontationists have been on the defensive within the Alt-White movement.
In particular, "non-violent" Ethno-Nationalists and Alt-Right intellectuals grouped around Counter-Currents Publishing, condemned "Heilgate" as counterproductive to winning over whites sympathetic to tougher anti-immigration measures, protectionist trade policy, and stronger anti-terrorist policy.
The Confrontationist wing were seeking a campaign that would move them front and center of the Alt-White movement. That required squashing their petty differences and finding operational unity: they needed a real victory. In Charlottesville, they picked the time and place of battle, and the choice of weapons.
Charlottesville was a target-rich environment for the Confrontationists. In April 2017, the Charlottesville City Council voted to sell the Statue of Robert E. Lee, dedicated in 1924. Lee is venerated as the old South's most celebrated son.
Virginia was the seat of the Confederacy, and Charlottesville was the intellectual home to Thomas Jefferson, first father of Western scientific race theory. Charlottesville was also a soft target; a liberal college town with a Jewish mayor and a Black Deputy Mayor who dared to defile the South greatest hero, by erasure of his stature.
One month after the Charlottesville City Council vote, Richard Spencer, issued a call to oppose the removal of Robert E. Lee's statue. On May 14, Spencer spoke at an afternoon and evening rally in Charlottesville of about 100 supporters. Nightfall brought the spectacle of a tiki-torch march to the University of Virginia campus. It evoked the specter of Nazi propaganda torchlight marches in Nuremburg. It was a bold and provocative statement that caught Charlottesville by surprise.
In the wake of the May 14 rallies, momentum began to build for an action pointing toward August 12. The unifying slogan "They Will Not Replace Us," began to appear on the websites and flyers. Under the banner of "Unite the Right," a coalition of organizations and Alt-White personalities emerged. The participating organizations each crafted their own posters, and listed "Unite the Right" as the sponsoring entity.
The speakers list assembled included the following Alt-White players; lead organizer Jason Kessler, Matt Heimback of Traditionalist Workers Party, Attorney Augustus Invictus, Dr. Michael Hill of the League of the South, Nathan Damigo of Identity Evropa, Baked Alaska, Christopher Cantwell, Michael Enoch, Johnny Monoxide, Pax Dickenson, Richard Spencer of the National Policy Institute. Other groups joining the action included Vanguard America and The Proud Boys.
The moment of truth for the Confrontationists occurred on July 8. A second rally was held in Charlottesville, led by the a contingent of 50 Loyal White Knights of the Klan from North Carolina. For their protection, KKK members had to be escorted into and out a park by Virginia State Police in riot gear.
The rally lasted one hour. KKK speakers were surrounded, drowned out, and overwhelmed by over 1000 counter-protesters that included Antifa and Black Lives Matter supporters. Mindful of the May 14 Alt-White torch light march, the counter-protesters were determined to carry the day. Of the twenty-two people arrested, most were counter-demonstrators charged with unlawful assembly. It was not a good day for the Klan, but they had hoisted their banner in a sea of hostility.
With August 12, looming in less than a month, the Alt White "Confrontationists" were under the gun to respond. And they did. While many of the Eth-Nats have had their differences, they managed to put them aside. Their fragile unity ultimately held over the three month campaign.
Arriving at the protest in Charlottesville, on the morning of 8/12, Matthew Heimbach, a leader of the Traditionalist Workers Party said "The biggest thing is a show of strength. To show that our organizations that have been divided on class, been divided on religious issues, divided on ideological grounds, can put 14 words — ‘We must secure the existence of our people and the future for white children’ — as our primary motivating factor." Time will tell if the unity of the youthful 1488's and the militant Eth-Nats will hold, but their operational unity marked an important development for the Confrontationists.
That the Alt Right was "feeling the moment" was also evidenced by their success in the legal skirmishes that preceded the march. On the eve of the march Judge Glen E. Conrad granted a temporary restraining order. The City of Charlottesville was ordered to allow Unite the Right to hold the August 12 rally in Emancipation Park (formerly Lee Park). He ruled that the disparity in treatment by the City in denying "Unite the Right's" permit was based on the content of Kessler's speech. It was game on.
As the eve of August 12 approached, the "Confrontationist" had decisions to make. Even as the Confrontationists made their way to Charlottesville there was uncertainty about what they would confront.
Two questions loomed large; How to tactically carry out their rally if their permit was revoked. Second, were they going to carry their arms openly or under concealment. That they were going to the demonstration armed, was not the issue. One group posted this update on its site;
UPDATE: "You may have heard the City of Charlottesville canceled the permit. This is true. It is being challenged in court, but we’re showing up, permit or not, and now we need you there more than ever! It is NOT illegal to protest without a permit anyway, and rumor has it, the cops are siding with us over the evil Jew Mayor Michael Singer and his Negroid Deputy Wes Bellamy. We have it on good authority that the Chief of police is going to ensure that the protest goes through as planned, regardless of what the ruling kike/Negroid powers are attempting."
Another site posted this: The Daily Stormer has issued a call for people to show up, permit or none, and given some advise on what to bring and what not to bring. Their advice is to leave your firearms at home, and if you must bring a firearm, please conceal it.
Nothing forges unity like leaders and their troops engaging in battle. Both Antifa and the Alt-White Confrontationists came prepared. Oddly enough, despite weeks of preparation by Charlottesville officials and thousands of police on the ground, they stood back and let the two sides engage in sharp pitched battles in the shadows of Robert E. Lee's statute. Both sides gave as good as they got, until the police intervened to declare the area protest an illegal assembly.
Charlottesville, was a real-time battlefield test for the Confrontationist wing to solidify their ranks. Perhaps Matt Heimbach summed up the Battle of Charlottesville best. He said "We achieved all of our objectives... We showed that our movement is not just online, but growing physically. We asserted ourselves as the voice of white America. We had zero vehicles damaged, all our people accounted for, and moved a large amount of men and materials in and out of the area. I think we did an incredibly impressive job."
