Violence Erupts: Extremism Turning to Hate
second‑degree murder, five counts of malicious wounding, three
counts of aggravated malicious wounding, and one count of hit and
run. Heyer’s ashes were buried in an unmarked, undisclosed location.
In October 2018, four alleged members of the California-based Rise
Above Movement hate group were arrested and charged with attending
the Unite the Right rally and actively promoting violent rioting there.
WHAT IS A HATE GROUP?
Many of the Unite the Right rallygoers, including Fields, were
members of organized hate groups. Hate groups advocate hatred and
violence toward members of a specific race, ethnicity, religion, gender,
or sexual orientation. The hate groups represented in Charlottesville
were primarily white supremacists, neo-Confederates, and neo-Nazis.
Members of these types of groups believe that whites are by nature
superior to blacks and other minority races. They oppose removing
statues that memorialize Confederate leaders who played an important
role in defending this belief.
Hate groups, however, are not all pro-Confederate or antiblack—
they come in all shapes and sizes. The Southern Poverty Law Center,
based in Montgomery, Alabama, is a leader in monitoring hate groups
across the United States. It defines a hate group as “an organization
that—based on its official statements or principles, the statements
of its leaders, or its activities—has beliefs or practices that attack or
malign [harm] an entire class of people, typically for their immutable
[unchangeable] characteristics.”
In other words, a hate group is an organization that attacks or
harms an entire group of people for characteristics they cannot change.
This type of organized hate exists across the United States and around
the world—and it’s growing. In 1999 the Southern Poverty Law Center
officially recognized 457 hate groups in the United States. By 2017 (the
most recent year for which data is available), that number had grown to
954 active hate groups.
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