Beyond a President’s Worst Fears, a Mob With Torches Arrived
Samuel Corum, Anadolu Agency, Getty Images
White supremacists unexpectedly pushed through UVa’s campus on Friday night, clashing with students and others.
Two nights before a throng of white nationalists descended upon the University of Virginia, carrying lit torches toward what would become a violent melee, Teresa A. Sullivan described her ominous misgivings to a colleague over dinner.
Violence was no longer hypothetical. It had happened.
The prospect of a “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville had loomed over Ms. Sullivan, the university’s president, for weeks. The event had all the makings of a powder keg: neo-Nazis in Emancipation Park, where the city has been seeking to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee, clashing with progressive-minded locals and students, who were just beginning to arrive for the fall semester.