ABSTRACT

Charlottesville is a city in Virginia of just over 48,000 people, formed as an act of assembly in 1762. It is home to the University of Virginia designed by Thomas Jefferson and gateway to Shenandoah National Park. Unlike the rest of Virginia, it was relatively unscathed by the Civil War. White supremacist ideology in the United States today is dominated by the belief that whites are doomed to extinction by a rising tide of non-whites who are controlled and manipulated by the Jews—unless action is taken now. The white supremacist movement has a number of different components, including neo-Nazis; racist skinheads; ‘traditional’ white supremacists; Christian Identity adherents; and white supremacist prison gangs. It requires action and activism. It also requires an understanding that democracy is a living experiment and that while the past cannot be changed all can atone for it and change the present and our future.