October has arrived. With the autumnal equinox at our backs, the hours of sunlight are daily being eclipsed by the darkness of night. While the longer nights are a welcome reminder to rest, the waxing darkness also calls us to reckon. Amid ongoing violence and division, I return to the question: How do we live out our commitments to love and justice, especially in the public square?
In light of recent events, I have been contemplating instances of political violence, and the role of violence in our society more broadly. The words of Father Richard Rohr rise to the fore: “There is always a linkage between the inner journey of contemplation and our ability to work against violence in the world, in our culture, and in ourselves.” I ask myself, in my own contemplative journey, how am I confronting violence, fear, and hatred within myself?
Brother Toby repeatedly urged me to record and share my own encounter with political violence. I hesitated to do so, because these stories are not easily expressed. Yet I can hear Brother Toby, even now, reminding me that the difficult and complicated aspects of our lives are the most important experiences to investigate.
When I was 20 years old, and a student at the University of Virginia, a local drama was gathering momentum. That momentum would ultimately crescendo into a national crisis that would claim lives, and alter my own life irrevocably.
On the night of August 11th, 2017, a close friend invited me to serve as an usher at an inter-faith service at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. At the doors of the church, we welcomed nearly 700 attendants, passing out programs and warmly shaking hands. Dr. Cornel West was one of the speakers that evening, along with various local religious leaders from different traditions. I stood outside the church, monitoring the door as a powerful chorus filled the building and strained against the windows. But my role unwittingly transitioned from usher to security guard.
Just a few blocks away, a gaggle of white nationalists were convening with torches for a march across the University of Virginia grounds. Their terminus was a statue of Thomas Jefferson, located in front of the iconic Rotunda, which sat immediately across the street from our location. On an anonymous 911 call, a man announced his intention to open fire on the church with his assault rifle. When the service continued, another call followed issuing an identical threat. Standing in front of those church doors, I listened to the approaching chants of an angry mob. They shouted, “Jews will not replace us! You will not replace us!” Adrenaline roared through my veins. I prayed, “Oh Lord, please protect us.”
How on earth did it come to this?
Charlottesville, Virginia, was a beloved and decidedly southern town. Its local history was remarkably enmeshed with the founding of the United States, a fact that was epitomized by Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), his university and ubiquitous presence throughout the city. This is the man who boldly proclaimed that “All men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence. This is also the man who owned scores of enslaved people, including Sally Hemmings, who was just 16 years old when she became pregnant with Jefferson’s child.
This particular story has deep roots, but a major turning point came in 2016, when Zy Bryant, a student at Charlottesville High School, petitioned the City Council to remove a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. The statue, erected in 1924 by segregationist donor Paul McIntire, was part of a larger effort to enshrine Jim Crow values under the pretenses of memorializing Confederate history.
Bryant’s petition, and the subsequent conversations unfolding at City Council meetings, immediately sparked backlash. In May of 2017, at Lee Park where the statue stood, the city’s Festival of Cultures took place. During the festival, a group of white nationalists gathered at the German heritage tent and made provocative claims about Adolf Hitler’s legacy. Later that night, they returned and encircled the Robert E. Lee statue with torches in hand, chanting “Blood and soil” and “You will not replace us.” Many astonished community members hoped that it was an ugly singular event.
But in early July, a group of nearly 50 Klansmen from North Carolina gathered once more at the Robert E. Lee statue to venerate the general who fought to defend the state’s rights to allow slavery. The KKK was vastly outnumbered by the hundreds of friendly faces and clergy members that had gathered in opposition, singing songs and making music to drown out their hateful chants. The imbalance between our groups felt almost laughable, and the atmosphere was positive, despite the police’s choice to stand alongside the Klan and unleash tear gas upon anti-racist protestors.
The drama roiled onwards. The city council eventually voted to remove the statue after watching it become a rallying point for white nationalists. However, a judge immediately issued an injunction to prevent the statue’s removal, and the council members grappled with the significant cost of removing the artifact. Yet the concerning situation remained: racists rallied around the Lee statue all summer long, defending their symbol of Confederate values.
Following the interfaith service at St. Paul’s Episcopal, the “Unite the Right” rally was planned for Saturday, August 12th, 2017. That morning, I walked a short distance from my house to the downtown pedestrian area, where I often went to read and study. I could scarcely believe my own eyes. Gangs of white supremacists, adorned in military surplus supplies, patrolled the streets in humvees. AK-47s and AR-15s were slung across their torsos, and I realized that my town had been turned into a war zone by these men. The droning of police helicopters flying low overhead filled my ears, and I feared what I might encounter as I continued along my usual path. Perhaps it is worth mentioning that staying home while neo-nazis and neo-confederates marched in my town seemed an unimaginable alternative. I would not allow fear to rule my movements, as these men desired.
I will avoid recounting the many atrocities of that day. There were simply too many beatings, injustices, and hate-crimes to list here. I don’t wish to relive them all, and I would like to spare you, dear reader. But this story feels important to share at this moment because it seems to me that we, as a nation, have not yet comprehended the lessons of that day.
As I walked, I quickly came upon a church that was acting as a Safe Zone. Food, water, and counselling were readily available for all, but no weapons were permitted inside the building.
I stopped in my tracks because I recognized my Hebrew professor handing out bottles of water.
“Shabbat Shalom!” I greeted him.
He looked a little shocked to see me, but recovered and smiled in return. Suddenly, a fight ignited just a few yards from where we both stood. We turned and watched as a white nationalist pulled out a gun, then pointed it at the crowd. As if carried on a river’s rushing current, I was swept inside the church alongside my professor. My hands instinctively rose to cover my head and ears in anticipation of gunshots, but thankfully, none came.
We sat solemnly side-by-side on a sturdy wooden pew. Minutes later, we received the horrific news that a white nationalist had accelerated a vehicle directly into a crowd of protestors, causing numerous injuries and taking a young woman’s life. Her name was Heather Heyer.
I examined my professor as he sat beside me. This impressive, erudite man that I admired suddenly seemed so human, so fragile in my eyes. I wanted to ask him, “How did we get here? How could this be allowed to happen?” But I understood that these are not questions that any one person can be expected to answer.
As a student, I was frequently studying the intersections between Christianity in America and social change. As a person of faith, I was fascinated by the ways that certain communities acted as champions of justice while, in contrast, others attempted to steer their communities backwards toward some vague notion of “better times.” As though, if they tried hard enough, they could be restored to the garden of Eden and leave all this messy “sin” business behind.
But is that God’s plan? Does God compel us to gaze longingly into the past such that we treat the future with fear and contempt? Alternatively, does God wish for us to race ahead with little regard for those that have preceded us, and all the complexity that has come to pass?
As I continue to traverse my spiritual path, I seek deeper understanding of my complex heritage—as a white American, and as a follower of Jesus. I pray for compassion even for those in my life who, out of fear or misinformation, have aligned themselves with hate. And most of all, I pray for justice—what Dr. Cornel West calls love made public.
May that kind of love win out. May it guide us not back into the past, but forward—into a future where all are seen as equal in the eyes of God. Amen.
Originally written for the Starcross Friday Reflection, October 3, 2025.
IsabellaZHall 