#debbie heyer

[mutant-distraction]

Charles Kooplaw

99.9% waxing moon rise over Mount Rainier. The incredible capture was by Debbie Heyer. She said, "It was so cool watching it roll up the left side of the mountain."

Mount Rainier, also known as Tahoma, is a large active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest in the United States. The mountain is located in Mount Rainier National

Park about 59 miles south-southeast of Seattle

Photo Credit: Debbie Heyer Photography

[blueiskewl]

Foundry Workers Melt Down Charlottesville’s Robert E. Lee Statue

Eventually, an artist will be chosen to transform the bronze bars into a public art installation

The controversial bronze statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee that stood for nearly a century in Charlottesville, Virginia, has been melted down so that it may someday be transformed into a public art installation.

On Saturday, at a foundry in an undisclosed location in the American South, workers cut the infamous figure into small pieces, then fed those pieces into a 2,250-degree furnace. They poured the metal into molds for ingots, or rectangular bars, imprinted with the words “Swords Into Plowshares.” That’s the name of the project that will transform the divisive monument into a new piece of public art.

Only a small group of people, including a handful of journalists, was allowed to watch the melting. They were invited on the condition that they didn’t disclose the name or location of the foundry—or the identities of its workers—over fears of retaliation.

“The risk is being targeted by people of hate, having my business damaged, having threats to family and friends,” says the foundry’s owner, a Black man, to the Washington Post’s Teo Armus and Hadley Green.

Even so, the man added, “When you are approached with such an honor, especially to destroy hate, you have to do it.”

One particularly poignant moment occurred when foundry workers removed the statue’s face from the rest of the head.

“A man in heat-resistant attire pulled down his gold-plated visor, turned on his plasma torch and sliced into the face of Robert E. Lee,” writes Erin Thompson, an art historian at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and author of Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America’s Public Monuments, in a guest essay for the New York Times. “The hollow bronze head glowed green and purple as the flame burned through layers of patina and wax. Drops of molten red metal cascaded to the ground.”

The 21-foot-tall statue’s journey to this point was a long and complicated one. Commissioned in 1917 and installed in 1924, it loomed over a downtown Charlottesville park for decades.

In 2017, amid a broader national debate over Confederate monuments, white supremacists gathered in Charlottesville to protest the statue’s removal. During the “Unite the Right” rally, a man drove his car into a group of counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring many others.

After years of legal battles, the statue finally came down in July 2021. The city donated it to the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, which has been responsible for it ever since and leads the Swords Into Plowshares project.

Organizers had wanted to melt down the statue sooner, but they waited until a judge dismissed a lawsuit against the plan.

Because of the statue’s size, the melting process will take weeks. Once that work is finished, project organizers will move on to the next phase of their plan: choosing an artist who will transform the metal into something new.

“Humpty Dumpty couldn’t be put back together again,” said Reverend Isaac Collins, a Methodist minister in Charlottesville who spoke at the melting ceremony, per NPR’s Debbie Elliott. “We still have a lot of work to do, but this statue that has cost us so much, so much violence, so much hurt, so much bloodshed—it’s gone. And it’s never going to be put back together the way it was.”

By Sarah Kuta.

#Foundry Workers Melt Down Charlottesville’s Robert E. Lee Statue #robert e lee #Henry Shrady #Leo Lentelli #Walter Blair #unite the right #confederacy #hate #racism #sculpture #bronze sculpture #art #artist #art work #art world #art news

[gwleddgymreig]

99.9% Waxing Moonrise over Mount Rainier by Debbie Heyer

#Moon #Diana #Luna #Night #mountains

[sitting-on-me-bum]

“Alien Eggs”

 Badlands of New Mexico, USA.

The Badlands of New Mexico are otherworldly and mysterious. They resemble an alien planet. If you don’t believe in aliens, you will after seeing this place. This is not an easy terrain to navigate, and it is very easy to get lost. Luckily, my friends knew the area well, and we could enjoy this photographer’s paradise of endless compositions that blew my mind! This was shot last October on a two-week photo tour with friends through the Southwest. It was the best way to end the Milky Way season.

By Debbie Heyer

Capture the Atlas -  Milky Way Photographers of the Year 2020

#debbie heyer #photographer #alien eggs #badlands #new mexico #united states #milky way #starry sky #night sky #astrophotography #capture the atlas #milky way photographers of the year 2020

[blasteffect]

Alien Eggs, Debbie Heyer Photography,

Capture the Atlas Best Milky Way Photos

#art #photography #milky way #stars #cosmos #cosmic #universe #alien #eggs #debbie heyer #capturetheatlas #mysterious #light #desert #mountains

[miraclepooh]

📹 Debbie Heyer

[landscape-lunacy]

Seattle, Washington - by Debbie Heyer Photography

#washington #seattle #lake #fall #autumn #foggy morning #dock #person #dog #trees #nature #landscape

[pangeen]

The trees and daffodils are blooming...

spring is right around the corner!

by Debbie Heyer

[nastyukulele]

This shit with scumbags sending bombs to the Obamas, the Clintons, to CNN, to Debbie Wassermann Schultz, it’s not an isolated incident and it’s not out of nowhere, this is the exact shit right-wing scumbags have been calling for. Earlier this month a man was arrested for making threats against anyone that voted for rapist manchild Brett Kavanaugh. Turd Nugent made overt threats against Obama and Clinton in ‘07. A right-wing sack of shit murdered Heather Heyer during a neo-nazi rally when he rammed a crowd with his car.

These are not isolated incidents separate from the over all political entity of right-wing politics. It’s the shriveled poisonous heart of their beliefs, the idea that using violence to enforce a system of oppression and hate is acceptable.

[meret118]

Bombs have now been sent to George Soros, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Debbie  Debbie Wasserman Schultz, CNN, and Maxine Waters

I figure Nancy Pelosi is next. 

Trump on Clinton: 'Look at what she’s getting away with'

Donald Trump Again Alludes to Violence Against Hillary Clinton

Donald Trump: 'Second Amendment' gun advocates could deal with Hillary Clinton

11 times Trump threatened Clinton with prison

Day After Praising Assault on Reporter, Trump Attacks Democrats As ‘Angry Mob’

Fox news commentator threatens to chock Barack Obama. 

The Proud Boys Have Revived Far-Right Gang Terror With GOP Support

Soros Targeted for Violence as Trump and Right Wing Wield Explosive Rhetoric

Florida GOP Official Leads Mob Alongside Proud Boy Who Attended ‘Unite the Right’

Republicans Are Adopting the Proud Boys: Before and after the Manhattan brawl, GOP figures defended and promoted the far-right group. It’s a valuable and dangerous bridge between fascism and mainstream politics.

Army Parrots Racist Right’s Talking Points on Antifa. In what are believed to be the first public Defense Dept. assessments of anti-fascists, internal documents whitewashed antifa's enemies, but admitted the group posed no threat.

The Proud Boys, The GOP And ‘The Fascist Creep.’ Gavin McInnes spoke at a GOP club, then his followers violently attacked leftist protesters. Modern American fascism finds its foot soldiers.

GOP Leader Appears With Far-Right ‘Proud Boys’ Street Gang in ‘Attack’ on Democratic Campaign Office

Republican gubernatorial nominee’s aide and ‘dear friend’ was also part of Florida Proud Boys rally. Ron DeSantis' buddy was palling around with a far-right hate group

In Queens, A Republican State Senate Campaign Courts Proud Boys & Neo-Nazis

Former GOP chair urges Trump supporters to bring guns to rally in case of violent protests

Heather Heyer’s Mom: I Have to Hide Her Grave From Neo-Nazis

'I thought it was very nice': VA official showcased portrait of KKK

HHS official shared post saying 'forefathers' would have 'hung' Obama, Clinton for treason

Ted Nugent renews call for Hillary Clinton to be hanged

Oklahoma legislator on Hillary Clinton: 'Two words ... firing squad'

Trump appointee Ximena Barreto shared conspiracy theories, memes promoting hanging of Clinto, Obama

Tweet about hanging Hillary Clinton posted by Riverside County GOP

Another GOP politician says Hillary Clinton should be hanged

West Virginia lawmaker tweets that Hillary Clinton should be 'hung'

At a Donald Trump rally, supporters call for the death of Hillary Clinton.

Trump Adviser Al Baldasaro: Execute Hillary Clinton for ‘Treason’ As if RNC 2016 wasn’t ugly enough. Now Donald Trump partisans are screaming that Hillary Clinton ‘should be shot.’

Bill O’Reilly Doesn’t Want to Lynch Michelle Obama Until He Is 100 Percent Positive She Hates America

“Constitutional Sheriffs” call for Obama’s lynching, meet with GOP senators

Florida State House Candidate Wants Obama Lynched

Ted Nugent Threatens Barack Obama

GOP PA mayor calls for Obama to be lynched

'Enemy Of The People': Man Echoing Trump's Words Charged With Threatening Newspaper

Trump approvingly tweets video of his rally crowd harassing a journalist

C-SPAN Caller Threatens ‘To Shoot’ CNN Hosts Brian Stelter And Don Lemon

Trump escalates threats against press, calls news coverage ‘frankly disgusting’

[filianoctis]

Dear Yuletide Author (Yuletide 2018)

Thank you so much for offering these fandoms! My AO3 handle is filia_noctis. 

I am extremely sorry that my sign up was so rushed that I couldn’t put in the optional details that all of us treat like a holy writ while trying to plan and write our gifts. 

This year, I have requested:

1.  Bend It Like Beckham (2002) : Jules Paxton, Jess Bhamra, Tony, Pinky Bhamra

2.  Ocean's 8 (2018) : Debbie Ocean, Lou Miller, Daphne Kluger

3.  Devil's Cub - Georgette Heyer  : Dominic Alastair, Mary Challoner

For all of the above, I am really invested in the people and their relationships with each other. I am an absolute sucker for friendships that amount to friends being found family, friends to lovers, and epic slow burn especially in the friends to lovers dynamic. What I really hope to read is some amazing woman/women and their lives with friends/lovers/at work/all three. 

I like canon-typical violence, adventure, fluff, witty dialogue and snark, historical details, humor, strong platonic friendships as well as slow-burning or established romantic relationships. M/M, M/F, F/F, and happy poly combos are deeply welcome. As are alternate universes or modern settings. I like porn but it’s not a need if you’re not comfortable with it.

Not a fan of crack-fic or purple if I can help it. I very strongly do not like abuse of any kind, infidelity, rape, spousal violence, or cruelty to animals or kids. Hard no to A/B/O. Hard no to dubious consent. I also prefer everyone in a relationship and in bed, or in roleplaying situations to be mutually consenting adults, please.

Thank you, once again. And I hope the holiday season treats you kindly. :)

#yuletide 2018 #dearauthor #request #fic #exchange

[vermiculated]

july august i am trying so hard

who doesn’t love a romance novel? @mysharkwillgoon and I have been enjoying the fruits of some very determined searching and listing at our county library

And Now We Have Everything - Meghan O'Connell

The Wanderers - Meg Howrey

The Period House - Richard Russell Lawrence and Teresa Chris

Emergency Contact - Mary K Choi

Still Waters - Curt Stager

Long Black Veil - Jennifer Finney Boylan

Off The Deep End - Nic Compton

The Shepherd's Hut - Tim Winton

The Way I Die - Derek Haas

The Monster On The Road Is Me - JP Romney

How To Read Nancy - Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden

The Discovery of Jeanne Baret - Glynis Ridley

Rock Steady - Ellen Forney

When Skies Have Fallen - Debbie McGowan

Life After Life - Kate Atkinson

Some Hell - Patrick Nathan

We Are Never Meeting in Real Life - Samantha Irby

Parting Shot - Mary Calmes

Just Drive - LA Witt

Us - Sarina Bowen

Hot Head - Damon Suede

Idyll Threats - Stephanie Gayle

Wanted A Gentleman - KJ Charles

A Seditious Affair - KJ Charles

Florida - Lauren Groff

The Ruin of Gabriel Ashleigh - KJ Charles

Sabrina - Nick Drnaso

What He Left Behind - LA Witt

A God in Ruins - Kate Atkinson

Undead Girl Gang - Lily Anderson

The Family Plot - Cherie Priest

Dare Me - Megan Abbott (vg)

Give Me Your Hand - Megan Abbott

Finding Your Feet - Cass Lennox

Life in the French Country House - Mark Girouard

Debbie Harry Sings In French - Megan Brothers

The Toll-Gate - Georgette Heyer

The Corinthian - Georgette Heyer

The Witch - Jean Thompson

American Hippo - Sarah Gailey

Afraid to Fly - LA Witt

Idyll Fears - Stephanie Gayle

A Gentleman's Position - KJ Charles

A Book of Tongues - Gemma Files

Princes at War - Deborah Cadbury (vg)

Elephants Can Remember - Agatha Christie

A Study in Scarlet - Arthur Conan Doyle

Our Kind of Traitor - John Le Carre

Super Graphic - Tim Leong

Julian is a Mermaid - Jessica Love

The Refrigerator Monologues - Cathrynne Valente

How to Taste - Becky Selengut

Fight No More - Lydia Millet

A Gentleman Never Keeps Score - Cat Sebastian

Chief's Mess - LA Witt

American Born Chinese - Gene Luen Tang

The Merry Spinster - Mallory Ortberg

So You Want To Be A Robot - Merc A Rustad

Government Issue - Richard Graham

Eric Fischl - Arthur C Danto et al

Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music - Gregory Alan Thornbury

Days of Awe - AM Homes

#books 2018 #literally only a handful of these were insulting to the trees/electrons they were impressed upon! #i'm improving! #i would still not recommend anything on this list unreservedly #because i am a reader made entirely of my reservations #and my desire for a woman character to find the love of her life and be as weird as she likes and get an INCANDESCENTLY HAPPY #ending. I've yet to encounter this story so we're going to stick to the reservations.

[gwlarson2002]

[sitting-on-me-bum]

“Alien Eggs”

Badlands of New Mexico, USA

Photographer: Debbie Heyer

#debbie heyer #photographer #badlands #new mexico #united states #milky way #night sky #starry sky #landscape photography #nature

[nhlabornews]

Shea-Porter: President Trump’s Charlottesville Comments “A Disgrace to Our Nation”

Yesterday, Congresswoman Co-Introduced Anti-White-Supremacy Resolution

DOVER, NH – Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01) condemned President Trump’s Tuesday afternoon comments equivocating “both sides” in Charlottesville.

“There are no ‘very fine’ neo-Nazis. I never thought we would hear such disgusting and outrageous comments from a President of the United States – comments that were immediately praised by David Duke, the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Today’s comments from President Trump are a disgrace to our nation,” said Shea-Porter. “Over the past week, the President has twice failed to condemn white supremacists’ violence and terror, and today, he went so far as to suggest there is moral equivalence between neo-Nazis and those who protest hate. If President Trump and his pro-white-supremacist staffers in the White House think they can tear down everything America stands for, they are wrong. We will not let them extinguish America’s beacon of hope and tolerance.”

Yesterday, Shea-Porter co-introduced a resolution, together with Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal and 30 other members of Congress, urging President Trump to strongly condemn white supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and other hate groups, and to remove individuals who have supported white nationalists, including Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, and Sebastian Gorka, from the White House.

“As Members of Congress, we must clearly and forcefully repudiate white supremacists and those who support them, whether they are terrorizing citizens in Charlottesville or advising the President in the White House,” said Shea-Porter.

The resolution:

Condemns the role of white supremacist, neo-Nazi, KKK and other hate groups in the “Unite the Right” rally and domestic terror attack in Charlottesville;

Denounces the increase in organizing, fear-mongering, racism, anti-Semitism, bigotry and violence perpetrated by white supremacists, neo-Nazis, the KKK and other hate groups;

Offers condolences and sympathies to the families of Heather Heyer, Lt. H. Jay Cullen and Trooper-Pilot Berke M.M. Bates, and urges a quick recovery to those injured;

Strongly urges the president to:

Fire individuals in the White House and Trump administration who have supported or encouraged support for white nationalists;

Quickly and publicly repudiate and denounce white supremacist, neo-Nazi, KKK and other hate groups;

Use all available resources of the Office of the President and the Cabinet to address the growing prevalence of such hate groups domestically; and

Use his office to unite all Americans against hate.

In addition to Shea-Porter and Jayapal, the resolution is co-sponsored by 30 members of Congress: Reps. Frank Pallone (NJ-06), Alcee Hastings (FL-20), Jerrold Nadler (NY-10), Nydia Velazquez (NY-07), Sheila Jackson Lee (TX-18), Earl Blumenauer (OR-03), Adam Smith (WA-09), Barbara Lee (CA-13), Grace Napolitano (CA-32), Raul Grijalva (AZ-03), Steve Cohen (TN-09), Hank Johnson (GA-04), Andre Carson (IN-07), Chellie Pingree (ME-01), Judy Chu (CA-27), Bill Foster (IL-11), Donald Payne Jr. (NJ-10), John Delaney (MD-06), Jared Huffman (CA-02), Mark Pocan (WI-02), Juan Vargas (CA-51), Don Beyer (VA-08), Brendan Boyle (PA-13), Mark DeSaulnier (CA-11), Debbie Dingell (MI-12), Seth Moulton (MA-06), Dwight Evans (PA-02), Ro Khanna (CA-17), Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL-08) and Al Lawson (FL-05).

Shea-Porter: President Trump’s Charlottesville Comments “A Disgrace to Our Nation” was originally published on NH LABOR NEWS

#Alt-Right #Hate Groups #KKK #President Donald Trump #Racism

[newssplashy]

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — In the days following the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville last summer, angry residents took over a City Council meeting.

“Why did you think that you could walk in here and do business as usual after what happened?”

Nikuyah Walker, one of the activists there that day, bluntly asked the sitting mayor.

Today, in a sign of how much has changed since white nationalists rallied here and shocked the nation, Walker is mayor herself, the city’s first black woman to serve in that role.

Since the rally, nearly every official who held power at the time has resigned or retired. The city attorney, who had concluded that there was no legal way to stop the rally, took a job in another town. The police chief stepped down in the wake of a critical report accusing him of failing to protect the public on the day of the rally. The city manager, who oversaw the city’s response, will leave by the end of this year.

Instead of uniting the right, the rally’s purported goal, it empowered a leftist political coalition that vows to confront generations of racial and economic injustice. But despite the dramatic overhaul of the city’s leadership, wholesale change has been slow to take hold.

The bronze Confederate generals that ignited the rally still sit on horseback in public parks. Activists still demand their removal. A judge still forbids it.

The local man who planned the rally still walks around town, scuffling with people who scream “murderer” when they see him.

Nearly a year after the rally, which featured beatings, brawls and a car that plowed into a crowd of anti-racism counterprotesters, killing one and injuring more than two dozen others, this picturesque city of 48,000 people is still engaged in a tug of war over its soul.

The most nettlesome divide, it turns out, is not between the far-left and the “alt-right,” whose members battled in the streets on Aug. 12. It’s between those who want Charlottesville to go back to the way it was before the rally, when a Google search brought up “happiest city in America” or “best food in small town America,” and those like Walker who say that the city must make sweeping changes to address deep-seated racial and economic disparities.

Walker has vowed to channel the grief from the city’s tragedy through the development of thousands of new apartments and a seat at the decision-making table for low-income residents, who are disproportionately black, and an end to “stop and frisk” policing. About 18 percent of families in the city struggle to make ends meet.

“For decades, people wanted to hide behind the illusion of perfection in Charlottesville,” she said at a recent forum on racial and economic disparities.

Walker, though, faces huge challenges.

“She wants to totally transform the status quo,” said Dave Norris, an early supporter who served as the city’s mayor from 2008 to 2012. “But what she’s up against is a community that’s rather fond of itself and rather enamored with the status quo.”

— Briefly United

After the rally, residents cried at concerts held to raise money for victims. Store windows displayed cards memorializing Heather Heyer, the woman who died after being struck by the car that barreled into a crowd. The City Council, once divided over the fate of the Confederate statues, voted to shroud the figures in black tarps.

But the residents, who united briefly in shock and grief, quickly divided into those who blamed the violence on outsiders who invaded their beloved city, and those who saw the rally as a revelation of the ugly reality of racism within the city itself.

At lunchtime at Court Square Tavern, across the street from the courthouse and the park where a statue of Stonewall Jackson stands, patrons trade news about which alleged assailant is coming into court that day.

“It’s people from out of town bringing that negativity to Charlottesville,” said Debbie Weisser, the tavern’s manager. In the troublemakers from out of town, she includes anti-racism activists who demanded the statues’ removal, prompting a rally by the Ku Klux Klan last July and the Unite the Right event in August.

“In the 28 years that I’ve been here, I’ve never heard so much talk about those statues,” she said.

But Andrea Douglas, director of the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, said the rally revealed something important about Charlottesville.

Despite its self-image as liberal and racially tolerant, few black faces can be spotted in the expensive restaurants or luxury condos downtown, even among the employees, she said. And she noted that the organizer of the Unite the Right rally, Jason Kessler, lives in town and attended the University of Virginia, the largest institution here.

“This notion of ‘outsiderness’ is interesting,” Douglas said. “He didn’t come from elsewhere.”

Months before the rally tarnished Charlottesville’s image, Walker, 38, had announced her bid for City Council with the slogan: “Unmasking the Illusion.” She ran as an independent, a signal that she intended to challenge the establishment Democrats who have run the city for decades.

— A Protester Takes Power

Unlike anyone who had been elected to the Council in decades, Walker was born and raised in Charlottesville. Not a seasoned politician, Walker became known for helping low-income residents navigate the city’s bureaucracy.A parks and recreation aide who earns $14.40 an hour, she shamed the city into paying its temporary and seasonal workers a living wage. A former resident of a low-income housing development known as Friendship Court, she went door to door, organizing residents to give them a greater voice in the plan to transform the development into mixed-income housing.

Instead of squeezing a few dozen affordable housing units out of developers, she wanted to add thousands. Instead of merely providing “implicit bias” training for police officers, she wanted an end to “stop and frisk.”

Those proposals may have sounded radical before the rally, but to many residents who were soul searching in its aftermath, they made sense. Anti-racism and anti-capitalist activists fired up in the rally’s aftermath hit the streets for Walker’s campaign. On Election Day, she received more votes than any other candidate.

“It’s hard growing up in Charlottesville, and being black in Charlottesville,” Walker told the crowd that night. “There are so many people who are brilliant and talented, and they never make it because of the conditions of this city.”

In January, after Walker was sworn in, four out of five city councilors voted to make her the new mayor, including Michael Signer, the mayor she had excoriated just five months earlier.

“I believe that thousands of people would welcome Ms. Walker into this role,” Signer said.

But many in the business community watched Walker’s ascendance with dread. She had vowed to vote against a $75,000 marketing grant to the downtown business association to help bring tourism back. And she seemed more focused on publicizing the city’s sins than its successes.

“It’s a little unsettling for people who are trying to run businesses,” said Jon Bright, owner of the Spectacle Shop who is also president of the North Downtown Neighborhood Association. “We’re sitting here with all these people who are screaming and focused on turmoil, and our mayor was one of them.”

— Struggling to Heal

Since the rally, tourism has rebounded. Tourists drink craft beer under umbrellas on a pedestrian plaza downtown that has been renamed Heather Heyer Way. A judge ordered that the black shrouds over the statues be removed.

Some say the biggest changes have taken place in people’s hearts, as white residents who had never thought much about racism flocked to meetings that raised awareness of white privilege organized by Showing Up For Racial Justice, an anti-racism group.

And two busloads of people, white and black and including public housing residents partly funded by the city and wealthy residents who paid their own way, traveled together on a pilgrimage to the lynching museum in Montgomery, Alabama, to memorialize a black man who was murdered by a Charlottesville mob in 1898. The group, which included Walker, brought soil from the site of the lynching. Pilgrimage organizers hope to display a memorial marker in Charlottesville that will help put the Confederate statues in context.

But despite these efforts, the town remains divided and struggling to mend. Even the notion of healing itself has become politically fraught, viewed by some as a premature call to return to business as usual.

An attempt by the Justice Department to share “best practices” for healing used by Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore with neighborhood groups was criticized by activists for failing to take dismantling white supremacy as a starting point. And Walker declined to attend an event about bridging political and racial divides organized by the Listen First Project, a national nonprofit group.

“We’re not ready to heal yet,” Wes Bellamy, a city councilor who is an ally of Walker’s, said at a Council meeting last fall, in emotional remarks that ended with him giving the black power salute.

These days, Walker, who declined to be interviewed for this article, talks less about healing the town than she does about uplifting its most vulnerable members. She has tried to give a new Civilian Review Board powers to oversee police conduct and squeeze more money out of the University of Virginia to help low-income residents.

But there is only so much she can do. The position of mayor in Charlottesville is a largely ceremonial and part-time role, with few formal powers. Walker complained publicly that she was unable to get a response from city housing officials about a 76-year-old woman being evicted from public housing.

Activists who helped elect Walker, meanwhile, continue to dominate City Council meetings, venting their outrage at everything from a community engagement session that they felt was too corporate, to a flyer advertising ornamental trees that they viewed as promoting gentrification.

At a City Council meeting in May, a mostly white crowd of activists heckled the founder of Charlottesville’s public defender’s office after he appealed for civility. They protested the newly appointed police chief, RaShall M. Brackney, the first black woman to serve in that role, even though she has the support of Walker.

Eugene Williams, 90, a black retired affordable housing developer, watched the meeting on television from his home. Decades after his lawsuit successfully helped desegregate the city’s schools, he finds it hard to identify with the activists of today, who shout at public meetings and focus on removing statues. He switched off the television in disgust.

He didn’t tune in long enough to see a woman injured in the car attack limping to the microphone, her leg still in a brace.

“I can’t just leave last summer behind,” said the woman, who is white and identified herself as Star Peterson. She demanded that the city acknowledge the failures of last summer.

“We will not move on so easily,” she said. “That is a promise.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Farah Stockman © 2018 The New York Times

via NigeriaNews | Latest Nigerian News,Ghana News,News,Entertainment,World News,sports,Naij In a Splash

#IFTTT #NigeriaNews | Latest Nigerian News #Ghana News #News #Entertainment #World News #sports #Naij In a