09 July, 2017
The statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville's Emancipation Park was vandalized sometime overnight between Friday and Saturday.
The KKK members were inside the city's Justice Park for about a half hour, waving flags and shouting "white power". "We hate drugs, homosexuality, abortion and race-mixing, because these things go against God's law and they are destroying all white nations". Crews removed the vandalism from the statue Saturday morning.
Due to the size of the crowd and for safety purposes, police had to escort the KKK to Justice Park.
White supremacists including Richard Spencer rallied in the college town, home of the University of Virginia, for the same reason on May 13.
The bronze figures of Lee and his horse, Traveller, atop an oval-shaped granite pedestal has been in the park for almost a century, the city of Charlottesville said. More than 100 people attended a counter-protest the following night.
Amid a string of recent removals of Civil War-era Confederate monuments across the South, the city of Charlottesville made a decision to remove the statue, opting to pull a memorial to the leader of an armed rebellion against the Union ― in defense of slavery and racism, no less ― out of a public space.
Among those there was Richard Spencer, who popularized the phrase "alt-right".
Some liberal activist groups plan to hold a "BlocKKKparty" protest around the Klan rally, the Charlottesville Daily Progress reported, while churches and other organizations have scheduled a series of educational and social events around the city throughout the day.
The Traditionalist Workers Party is also planning a protest in Charlottesville set to happen on August 12.
