There were many players in the Unite the Right Rally. The Southern Poverty Law Center offers a great collection of critical information on the day and those who played a part in it.

Torch-bearing white supremacists marched through the University of Virginia campus chanting the slogans "Jews will not replace us!" and "Blood and soil!" on the evening of August 11, the day before the actual Unite the Right rally.

“Heather Heyer was a fat, disgusting Communist. Communists have killed 94 million. Looks like it was payback time.”

-The words of Jason Kessler, white nationalist and Unite the Right rally organizer, a disgusting excuse for a human being, August 19, 2017

DeAndre Harris, who was beaten severely by two white nationalists in a parking garage in Charlottesville, survived his attack but still lives with the damage they inflicted, including PTSD. He had to move out of Charlottesville to safety and was forced to give up a job he loved as a special ed aid in a local school.

Richard Spencer, white nationalist, antisemite, and conspiracy theorist who was also a player in the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville. you can read all about him here.

The notion that we're 'one people' is a nice, little pipedream that we've managed to write into history books and brainwash our children with for decades. We are anything but 'one people.' We never have been. Never was that more apparent than in Charlottesville, Virginia, during the weekend of August 11 and 12, 2017, at the Unite the Right Rally.

The rally brought together a well-armed broad spectrum of right-wing racists and bigots, including neo-fascists, neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates, white nationalists, the Ku Klux Klan, and various anti-government militias in a show of white might in Charlottesville, Virginia. This "rally" was in response to the removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee.

Empowered by the political rise of Donald Trump just seven months earlier, this was also the first opportunity for white supremacists and antisemites to rear their ugly heads out on the streets instead of merely online, and the results were devastating.

Although the rally itself was scheduled for August 12, about 250 white supremacists, led by Richard Spencer, gathered on the University of Virginia campus the Friday night before the rally (August 11) at a place called Nameless Field, just behind Memorial Gymnasium. From there, they lit their torches and marched through the campus, chanting the following slogans:  "Jews will not replace us!" "You will not replace us!" "Blood and soil!"

The marching torch bearers brought back imagery of the KKK rallies of the past, and the "Blood and soil" slogan (derived from the original German "Blut und Boden") was a key slogan of Nazi ideology. 

They were met by a small group of counter protesters and some violence ensued, but it would pale compared to the following day's rally. The scene was cleared away fairly quickly, but the horrifying racist imagery remained.

The actual rally was scheduled from noon to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, August 12, but people started to gather in Emancipation Park (formerly Lee Park) from where the statue would be removed, at 8:00 a.m. Two contingents were there, those who planned the march, some with shields and clubs, long guns, and pistols. (Virginia is an open carry state.)

The other contingent was the counter protesters, rally attendees, and onlookers, including churchgoers, clergy and civil rights leaders. There was a lot of shouting back and forth, and by 10:30 a.m. the atmosphere had soured.

Jason Kessler, white nationalist, antisemite, conspiracy theorist who was a main organizer of the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville. You can read all about him here.

Then a wild card showed up in the form of a militia carrying semi-automatic weapons and pistols. Its fearless leader, Christian Yingling, announced that they were there to keep the peace and were welcomed by the Charlotte Police Department. Where have we heard that one before? Kenosha ring a bell? It is here where we interject that we know we have a problem with white supremacy in police departments across the nation.

Instead of honoring the plan the rallygoers agreed to in order to keep them separated from the counter-protestors, they flooded in from all sides. This was according to Charlottesville Police Chief Al S. Thomas Jr. They rushed at the counter-protestors.

Meanwhile, outside the park, more white nationalists with shields and clubs headed for the park and were blocked by a couple of dozen more counter-protestors. The white nationalists broke through and began swinging clubs and spraying chemicals. The counter-protestors fought back. The police remained on the sidelines. By 11:22 a.m. the police declared the melee an unlawful assembly and shut it down. It would not make it until 5:00 p.m. and they believed disaster had been averted, in spite of some sporadic fighting between the two groups lingering on throughout the city.

The white nationalist contingent headed toward McIntyre Park, about a mile away. The counter protestors did not follow. But at the park, they were informed that the rally was over. Back in town, a tweet from the Charlottesville city Twitter account issued at 1:14 p.m. read:

“CPD & VSP respond to 3-vehicle crash at Water & 4th Streets. Several pedestrians struck. Multiple injuries.”

The people who had traveled to McIntyre Park did not make a connection between the rally and the "accident." But it was clearly no accident. Matthew Korbon was one witness who knew what he saw was as people were being loaded into ambulances. He said what he witnessed was "absolutely intentional."

The driver of the car and rallygoer, James Alex Fields, Jr., drove his Dodge Challenger at a crowd of pedestrians. According to Korbon, Fields plowed into one group, then threw the car into reverse and hit another group. Heather Hyer, a 32-year-old counter protester from Charlottesville, was killed. There were 19 other people injured. Fields was eventually found guilty of killing Heather Hyer and the wounding of others. He will spend the rest of his life in prison.

One other victim of white supremacist violence that day was DeAndre Harris, a black counter protester who was beaten to within an inch of his life by white supremacists in a parking garage in Charlottesville. Harris survived his attack, and two assailants were also eventually found guilty. You can see the horrible beating in the video included in this article.

Donald Trump, who failed to denounce white supremacy and who claimed there were "very fine people" on both sides. One of his 30,573 lies in four years.