True to the event's name, Columbia stood with Charlottesville on the grounds of the South Carolina Statehouse Monday evening.
Simply titled Columbia Stands with Charlottesville, the gathering was held in reaction to a Saturday incident in which a man killed one person and injured several others by driving his car into a crowd in the midst of a white nationalist rally in Virginia. For two hours Monday evening, Columbia residents of all ages and races listened to speeches from community leaders while wandering the Statehouse grounds with signs calling for peace and open-mindedness in the wake of the attack.
Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin welcomed the crowd from the Statehouse steps by assuring them of his support for their cause.
"God bless you," Benjamin said. "Know that your city is with you."
Benjamin's speech was succeeded by one from State Rep. Beth Bernstein (D-Richland), who represents District 78 in southern Richland County. Bernstein told the crowd that growing up in a Jewish household and having relatives die in the Holocaust gave her resolve to stand up to xenophobia.
"Today, it has become too easy to espouse discrimination and not be condemned for it," Bernstein said. "It's time to stand up and say, 'This is wrong, it will not be tolerated.'"
No counterprotesters appeared to be present at the Statehouse Monday evening. Law enforcement officials, including Columbia Police Department Chief Skip Holbrook, patrolled a temporary fence set up along the Gervais Street sidewalk in front of the Statehouse.
Hosted by Progress South Carolina, the event was announced Saturday only hours after a man drove his vehicle into a crowd of counterprotesters during the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The attack injured 19 and killed 32-year-old paralegal Heather Heyer.
Two Virginia State Police officers also died while keeping an eye on the rally from the air. Lt. H. Jay Cullen, 48, and Trooper Berke M. M. Bates, 40, died when their helicopter crashed as they circled Charlottesville Saturday afternoon.
Cullen, who according to the New York Times had spent two decades flying aircraft for the Virginia State Police, was piloting the helicopter at the time of the crash. No official explanation has been released as of Monday evening.
The driver of the vehicle who killed Heyer, 20-year-old James Alex Fields of Ohio, is being held in Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail on charges of second-degree murder, hit and run and three counts of malicious wounding. Fields was denied bail by Judge Robert H. Downer Jr. at a Monday hearing in Charlottesville.
Following national outcry over the attack, a "White Lives Matter" rally, planned to take place at Texas A&M University on Sept. 11, was cancelled by university administrators Monday night. Rally organizer Preston Wiginton, who announced the event with a Saturday press release titled "TODAY CHARLOTTESVILLE TOMORROW TEXAS A&M," told the Texas Tribune Monday that "his lawyers" might sue the state of Texas to fight the event's cancellation.