There was much in the life of Thomas Jefferson of which one might be ashamed. Despite advocating the end of slavery in “Notes on the State of Virginia” in 1785, he failed to free his own slaves, including his own children and their mother, even upon his death. His reputation as a “benevolent” slaveholder has been put to rest by excavations at his home and publication of an unedited version of his farm ledger.
There are, however, many things about the third president which would engender just pride, three of which he asked be engraved upon his tombstone: authoring the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia statute forbidding the establishment of religion and the founding of the University of Virginia.
Last night, on the campus of that institution, men bearing torches surrounded people standing in support of equality and freedom of religion, chanting anti-Semitic and Nazi slogans. Today, those men and still more like them brought blood to the streets of Charlottesville.
While some may believe this to be a dark day in the history of our country, I believe it is instead a dawn. The election of the current president has finally brought these prophets of hate out from behind their hoods and usernames, into the light of day, where we may see them.
And face them down.
This day, I believe, will be celebrated as the beginning of the end of the power of Nazis and Klansmen in the United States of America, the day when average citizens were shown just how great that power of hate has been allowed to grow and committed themselves to its demise.
This will not be a quick victory, nor an easy one (nor, god help us, a bloodless one). But it is a fight from which we may not turn, unless we are prepared to see a lot worse than C-ville.
There will be large, public battlefields like those on your TV today. There will be many, many more small, private ones. Thanksgiving tables and backyard barbecues, checkout lines and sports bars. Places we do not think of as battlefields, where scattered volleys of hate are too often ignored, written off as “just talk.”
These shots aren’t “just talk.” They are requests for permission, which is granted by our silence.
I will not grant that permission.