The National Parks Service has approved an application submitted by Jason Kessler, white supremacist and organizer of the Unite the Right march in Charlottesville last year, for another alt-right rally held in Washington, D.C. on August 11 and 12 this year.
He has not yet been granted a permit.
Kessler estimates upwards of 400 people will gather outside the White House in Lafayette Square to march, give speeches, and protest what he describes as “civil rights abuse.”
“This year we have a new purpose,” Kessler said in a statement. “That’s to talk about the civil rights abuse that happened in Charlottesville, Virginia last year.”
Last year, after a contentious morning in Charlottesville’s Emancipation Park in which thousands of counter-protesters met nearly 1000 members of the alt-right, law enforcement decided to end the rally before the allotted permit time began. Later that day, counter-protester and Charlottesville resident Heather Heyer was killed after being struck by a car driven into a crowd by white supremacist James Fields Jr.
“It wasn’t the fault of my group that that stuff happened,” Kessler said in a statement, placing blame with the city and the counter-protesters.
In his application, Kessler predicts that “Antifa affiliated groups will try to disrupt.”
As of now, the gathering is scheduled to last all day on both days.
