Hatred Motivated White Rally in Charlottesville, Not Civil War Statues

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe said that white nationalists who were behind the clashes in the city of Charlottesville sought to promote hatred and bigotry and had interest in efforts to remove statues honoring Confederate leaders in the US Civil War.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — White nationalists and hate groups behind violent racial clashes in the city of Charlottesville sought to promote hatred and bigotry and had interest in efforts to remove statues honoring Confederate leaders in the US Civil War, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe said in an interview on Thursday.

"They went to the University of Virginia on Friday night with their torches, that had nothing to do with a statue," McAuliffe told CBS News. "There was hatred, there was bigotry that has been unleashed."

Over the weekend, white nationalists who organized the rally claimed they were protesting plans to remove a monument of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a park in Charlottesville.

The rally drew counter-demonstrators, including members of the left-wing movement AntiFa, and the two sides engaged in violent clashes.

The violence culminated when a Nazi supporter slammed his car into a crowd of counter-demonstrators, killing one person and leaving 19 others injured.

McAuliffe has called on the state legislature to take down all Confederate monuments in Virginia.