Protesters gathered outside the U.S. consulate in Toronto Monday in a hastily organized demonstration against this weekend’s violence during a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va.
The small, sidewalk protest was organized over Facebook and Twitter and brought together several dozen people who chanted: “No hatred. No fear. Your racism has no place here.”
“I am a U.S. citizen, and like many U.S. citizens and Canadians, I was appalled by what I saw unfolding in Charlottesville on Saturday,” protest co-organizer and University of Toronto professor Donna Gabaccia told CTV News Channel.
She said the gathering was friendly and noted many in attendance were “not political activists or people who would normally show up for a demonstration.”
Many held signs with messages condemning anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, white supremacism and other forms of racism.
Gabaccia characterized the demonstration as a “largely white” mix of U.S. and Canadian citizens.
“Many white people, whether they are Americans or Canadians, feel that it is especially important to speak out now. In the past that hasn’t always been the case in moments of bigotry and racial conflict,” she said.
Jesse Blue Forrest, who was born and raised in Charlottesville, was among those who attended the rally. He called the clashes in his hometown “sickening” including the murder of Heather Heyer, 32, who was struck and killed by a driver who rammed into the crowd.
Forrest told CP24 that Charlottesville was once a peaceful city “and seeing what has happened now, the cancer that is in the United States, it’s just not Charlottesville.”
He added, though, that the tension in Virginia has “been brewing for a long time” and not just since U.S. President Donald Trump took over the White House.
“The under-surface part of it has been there a really long time,” Forrest said.
Forrest said he was pleased to see Toronto residents come out for the protest, “to stand against this sickness that’s taking place right now,” adding he hopes it’s a sickness that never spreads to Canada.
Similar rallies against the Charlottesville violence were held across the U.S. and parts of Canada Sunday, including in Montreal, where approximately 200 people marched past the local U.S. consulate to protest racism.
A vigil was held in Toronto Sunday night to remember the victims of Saturday's violence.
On Sunday, Trump condemned the Virginia violence, but failed to make any specific reference to the white supremacists.
Instead, he spoke of “hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides” while offering condolences to the Heyer family “and best regards to all of those injured.”
After facing pressure all weekend to issue a more forceful statement, Trump read a new statement to reporters Monday in which he called neo-Nazis, white supremacists, the KKK, and other hate groups “criminals and thugs” who are “repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans."
“This morning I think he felt he was probably in a corner,” Gabaccia said of Trump’s second response.
