Paying respects to those who’ve left this world is nothing new. In fact, some celebrity graves draw so many visitors that their final resting places must be barricaded, guarded, or even changed, all to protect them from devoted fans determined to snag a souvenir or leave a permanent tribute.
But in a candid interview with The Daily Beast Senior Editor Tim Teeman, Charlottesville victim Heather Heyer’s mother, Susan Bro, has revealed that she has to keep the location of her daughter’s grave a secret—for a very different reason.
This site cannot be publicly known because of all those extremists who profess their hatred for Heyer and Bro, and who convey their continued threats of violence toward Bro and others of Heyer’s family. The location is also secret to protect those who work there, says Bro.
She visits Heyer there in peace, and other members of the family and close friends have been to the location, or will be told in time where the place is and taken there.
“It’s a symptom of hate in society that you should have to protect your child’s grave, for Pete’s sake,” says Bro. “So, I’m protecting my child now.”
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Heyer, 32, was killed on August 12, when a Dodge Challenger, allegedly driven by James Alex Fields, Jr., 20, plowed into a crowd of anti-racism protesters at a “Unite the Right” rally in the central Virginia college town. Fields, Jr. was charged with first-degree murder on Thursday, upgraded from his initial indictment on second-degree murder, among other offenses. According to Charlottesville police, 36 people were harmed in the attack.
It may still shock some to learn that people want to desecrate the grave of someone who died fighting for civil rights, fighting against racism, but it shouldn’t. Just this Monday, “Unite the Right” rally organizer and Charlottesville resident Jason Kessler saw his outrageous application to host a commemorative anniversary event denied by the city.
“The proposed demonstration or special event will present a danger to public safety,” the city wrote in a letter denying Kessler’s request.
In addition to dealing with the sudden death of her daughter, Bro has found herself in the spotlight as she continues her daughter’s fight against white nationalism and the “alt-right.” Still, she is also leery of those who wish to lionize her child for doing what anyone should have been doing: fighting racism.
“She didn’t go there to be a martyr. This is part of my frustration with people, who either make her out to be a martyr in that she went there to die, or that she was a saint and angel and godly person.”
Bro claps her hands as she says the following words, slowly and loudly for emphasis: “Heather was a normal 32-year-old girl.”
In the end, Heyer’s death left her mother with a megaphone, and she’s not hesitating to use her voice. But she’s still not taking Donald Trump’s calls.
Bro still does not want to speak to President Trump.
“If you choose to align yourself with those people, and you choose to call them ‘good,’ then you’ve told me what sort of person you are. So now I have your number and now I know how I choose to respond to you. And in his case, that means: ‘I’m not responding to you, you don’t get my time of day.’”
She really, really means it:
“He disrespects everybody, Heather’s not special in that regard,” Bro says of the president. “He disrespects Native Americans, black people, history, everything. He has no respect for anybody. This man is not about respect. He never was, he never will be. It’s who he is.”
Read the full interview here.