RICHMOND — Self-proclaimed white nationalist Richard Spencer led a large group carrying torches and chanting “You will not replace us” Saturday in Charlottesville, protesting plans to remove a Confederate monument that has played an outsize role in this year’s race for Virginia governor.
“What brings us together is that we are white, we are a people, we will not be replaced,” Spencer said at the first of two rallies he led in the college town where he once attended the University of Virginia.
At the second rally, dozens of torch-bearing protesters gathered in a city park in the evening and chanted “You will not replace us” and “Russia is our friend,” local television footage shows. Spencer was not shown addressing that gathering, but he tweeted a photo of himself standing in the crowd carrying what appeared to be a bamboo tiki torch.
The evening protest was short-lived. About 10 minutes into it, an altercation between Spencer’s group and counter-protesters drew police to the scene, and the crowd quickly dispersed, the Charlottesville Daily Progress reported.
Once an obscure Internet figure promoting white identity, Spencer coined the term “alt-right” and rose to prominence during Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Although Trump denounced the “alt-right,” Spencer’s followers counted his victory as a win for the movement as Trump espoused hard-right stances on undocumented immigrants, Muslims and political correctness.
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“You will not replace us. You will not destroy us,” Spencer said at the earlier rally, which he broadcast via Periscope video. “You cannot destroy us. We have awoken. We are here. We are never going away.”