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US President Donald Trump said Saturday that he condemned racism as the nation marked the anniversary of deadly unrest triggered by a neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“The riots in Charlottesville a year ago resulted in senseless death and division,” Trump wrote on Twitter.
“We must come together as a nation. I condemn all types of racism and acts of violence. Peace to ALL Americans!”
Last year’s protests began August 11 and saw hundreds of neo-Nazi sympathizers, accompanied by rifle-carrying men, yelling white nationalist slogans while wielding flaming torches in scenes eerily reminiscent of racist rallies held in America’s South before the Civil Rights movement.
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They had gathered to protest efforts to remove statues of Confederate leaders, including one of the Confederacy’s top general, Robert E Lee.
When the demonstrations continued on August 12, fighting broke out between neo-Nazi supporters and anti-fascists from a black-clad group called Antifa.
The violence culminated with a man driving a car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing a woman and injuring 19 people.
In the immediate aftermath, Trump drew broad criticism when he initially appeared to establish a moral equivalence between the two groups of protesters and refused to criticize the far rightwingers.
He did eventually yield to immense political pressure and condemn white nationalism.
But just a day later, Trump said there was “blame on both sides” for the violence, condemning the anti-fascists who came “with clubs in their hands.”
“I think there’s blame on both sides,” Trump said. “But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.”
