Listen to Wes and John’s Stories

“So, have we completely won the war against white supremacy? No, you don't defeat 400 years of systemic oppression in five years. But have we won several battles? Hell, yeah. Are we much better than we were on August 12th and 13th, 2017? Undoubtedly. Do we have a long way to go? For sure. Will we get there? I believe it. With every ounce of blood in my body.”

- Wes Bellamy

Wes Bellamy 

So what we're looking at is actually Sunday, August 13th, at roughly 6:30 p.m.. We are at what is now known as Heather Way. And you see within this picture hundreds of people who came out to pay their respects at a community vigil. This was at the exact spot in which there were several protesters who were run over by a vehicle. Unfortunately, Heather lost her life. But it was at this time in which our community in many ways was traumatized. And many people were both physically and verbally and just emotionally abused and still living with that trauma. I remember from this day when I woke up that Sunday, I put on my favorite suit, a blue suit, and I told myself that, “Yesterday was yesterday. And today, no matter what, I have to show people that we will overcome this. So I'm going to smile the entire day. I'm not going to look sad the entire day, intentionally. I'm not going to be sad. I'm going to show symbols of strength and control throughout the day.” And I remember reminding myself that all day because I knew that if I take an approach that we're okay, we're going to overcome this. We beat the Nazis, we beat the white supremacists. They ran away. If I'm consistent with that messaging, then others will draw from that. So during the time of this picture, I had already changed clothes. And I was at the BCBA basketball championship in which we saw maybe, we probably had two or 300 Black folk over at Tonsler Park, and that's where the majority of the Black people were. If you look in this particular picture, there aren't a lot of Black people because everybody's at Tonsler. And I remember leaving Tonsler and telling the guys, “I'll be right back. I need to go over to this vigil and pay my respects.” And about five guys saying, “No, I'm going with you because we can't allow anything to happen to you.” And I remember getting over here and talking to Marissa, talking to Courtney, talking to Marcus. These are individuals who were really close with Heather, individuals who also had got hit. And just talking to them, talking to Susan and kind of hugging them, reassuring them that we will get through this. Kind of just listening to them. So there's a lot of sombering faces in this picture, a lot of people who are just trying to figure it out. And again, I just wanted to remind folks that we won. And while we're in the midst of this battle, we're going to win the battle. So yeah. It's okay for us to emote. It's okay for us to feel what we're feeling like, we should feel these things. Hell, I felt these things when you put the picture back up. But around that time I remember again just me saying to myself and then others who I spoke with that: we're not going to be ran away, were not going to lose. And I think subsequently, we've had many victories. So, have we completely won the war against white supremacy? No, you don't defeat 400 years of systemic oppression in five years. But have we won several battles? Hell, yeah. Are we much better than we were on August 12th and 13th, 2017? Undoubtedly. Do we have a long way to go? For sure. Will we get there? I believe it. With every ounce of blood in my body.

- Music credit: Tomas Skyldeberg / That Moment / courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com

Interview Transcript: John Kelly

John Kelly

My name is John Kelly. As I look at this photo, it really takes me back not only to that day, but to the day before when I had been working with a documentary crew. I was in the park that was being guarded by AR 15 as I was walking in and out of that phalanx of people who were who were there. And then, as fate would have it, I was called with the crew down to the scene very soon after Heather Heyer was hit and killed. So when I look at it now, I'm struck by a couple of things. I'm struck by the fact that I'm standing just around the corner from where I had stood 24 hours earlier. And then I look, I'm really struck by the sense of community, the people who came out that night when I really had no idea how many people would be there. I knew, it being Charlottesville, there would be people. But I was really struck by the number of people who came together. And if you look at the faces, each person is going through a different moment for themselves. But yet we do have that shared experience of being from here and having watched what happened. I think it was sort of in many ways the height of that sense of community that that defines this place in so many ways. But as I look at it five years later, I think I have hope that we would come together in that way, but so much has happened in these five years that it's hard to imagine any community coming together as strongly as everyone did that day. I also hope that the events of the last five years haven't fractured us in a way that might make this impossible. But when I came here and saw all these people, I was I was sort of in awe. And in awe of the opportunity to share that moment, both sort of personally and for myself and also with these other people. And I think that speaks a lot to the community that we were before that and the community that we continue to strive to be. 

Music credit: Marten Moses / Unfriendly Users / courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com