The March to Confront White Supremacy trekked 118 miles over 10 days to reach it’s final destination at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C. earlier today, but not before making a detour through Falls Church’s Washington St. where they were greeted with water and support from citizens, including members of the Tinner Hill Heritage Foundation.
A spirited group of about 50 demonstrators were just a fraction of the 1,000 that had made up the march during its journey that started at Emancipation Park in Charlottesville on Aug. 28 – the site of the “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally that resulted in the death of one counter-protester, Heather Heyer – and ventured through Virginia’s rural counties before reaching Northern Virginia and eventually D.C. The march was organized by a group of local religious leaders to simultaneously honor the death of Heyer and “call for the removal of President Trump and all other elected officials who embolden and support white supremacists and the end of white supremacist public policies.”
With the Trump administration’s announcement yesterday that it would be ending former President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in six months if Congress can’t find a way to instate the executive order into law, marchers made it a point to emphasize their opposition to that as well. Groups that took part in the march were United We Dream, Color of Change, the Movement for Black Lives, IfNotNow, the Women’s March, the Center for Popular Democracy, Working Families Party and many more.
The march was a success, despite some obstacles. Inclement weather tagged the demonstrators during certain stretches of their route. Virginia state police department also halted the marchers in Fauquier County due to a traffic jam caused by a combination of Labor Day weekend travel surge and rain.
