Anniversary posts tend to feel kind of meaningless, just a marking of time, a counting of years. For most of the survivors of tragedies, it’s not a matter of an annual “oh remember when,” but a daily confronting of the ways life is different now. They miss loved ones, they miss being able to walk without pain, they miss an old life.
And yet at the same time, anniversaries are marked for a reason. So that we don’t forget, so that those of us who get to move on with our lives are forced to take a moment to reflect.
On August 11, 2017, a brave group of students defended their campus from an onslaught of violent neo-Nazis. On August 12, 2017, a brave group of townspeople, anti-racist activists, and clergy came together to resist a hate-filled white supremacist takeover of their town. Still today, it’s many of the same people who are resisting the breakdown of democracy and rise of hate-filled policies. As anti-fascist Charlottesville bookstore The Beautiful Idea put it, “We must never forget the tragedy of Heather Heyer’s murder or the many comrades injured in the fighting. But we must also remember that we won. We defeated them on August 12, 2017 and we can do it again.”
I am personally inspired by the activists, students, clergy, and so many others who are fighting against white supremacy then, now, and always, and I’m thinking about them today, tomorrow, and always.
