CHARLOTTESVILLE

In-depth history of the murderous white supremacist march on the Virginia city in 2017.

“There is a direct path from the Unite the Right rally of August 12, 2017, to the Stop the Steal insurrection of January 6, 2021,” writes native daughter Baker, who returned to her hometown after many years to explore that connection. The proximate cause of the rally, marked by polo-and-khaki-clad, mostly young men chanting against Jews, immigrants, and other perceived enemies, was the planned removal of a statue honoring Robert E. Lee—who, Baker sagely notes, never visited the city. The rally brought that white supremacist crowd, full of neo-Confederates and neo-Nazis, into the progressive home of the University of Virginia and a town with a Jewish mayor and large Black population. At the helm of the alt-right marchers was the supremely ambitious Richard Spencer, with a network of ex-military militia recruited from far afield—just like that Jan. 6 crowd. Charlottesville had long been a locus of racial enmity: As Baker notes, the Lee statue was a deliberate provocation. So, too, was the march, courtesy of the ACLU’s contesting against a city-imposed ban on it. The result led to the book’s concluding event: a young man “who kept a framed photograph of Hitler and a copy of Mein Kampf by his bedside” drove into a crowd, killed a woman named Heather Heyer, and injured many others. Populating her account with the likes of violence-bent if often inept men whom she dubs Swastika Pin, Tampa Realtor, Red Shirt, and the like—their real identities later exposed through careful investigation—Baker demonstrates the despicable falsity of Donald Trump’s saying that there “were very fine people, on both sides”—and shows how coordinated resistance against white supremacists both can work and will be required again in the coming years.

A vivid account that capably illuminates the evils half-hidden under a flickering torch.