NoVA Residents Spend Independence Day In Caravan Against Hate

MANASSAS, VA — A caravan of vehicles left Manassas late Saturday morning on their way to Charlottesville, with the goal of building unity among Virginians against hate and violence. The caravan was originally scheduled to be a three-day march, starting in Manassas, that would finish in Charlottesville on the three-year anniversary of the killing of a counter-protester at the Unite the Right rally.

The event, Unity March Against Hate, was switched from a three-day walk to a car caravan for the safety of the participants due to the coronavirus pandemic. Organizers rescheduled the event to occur on the Fourth of July.

Jamie Beletz, a disabled veteran, initially planned to do the march on his own. But when groups and individuals learned about his plans, they wanted to join him.

"I got tired of hearing people insulting people because of the color of their skin or their sexual preference," Beletz told Patch Saturday. "There are still hate groups here in Prince William County and in Virginia. We want to let them know we don't appreciate it."

Even though the Prince William Board of County Supervisors now has a Democratic majority, Beletz said there are still vestiges of former board Chairman Corey Stewart, who led efforts to rid the county of undocumented immigrants during his 13 years in office.

"We need to send a message that says there are those of us who are unified against hate speech and violence," said Beletz, who expected as many as 100 vehicles to join the caravan once it reaches Charlottesville.

Aeshah Sheikh, a co-organizer of the event and Prince William County activist, said she joined the effort after she learned of Beletz's idea "to bring unity into this county and this state and this country."

After leaving Manassas, the Unity March Against Hate caravan of vehicles headed to Gainesville where they met up with several other drivers who had signed up to participate in the caravan to Charlottesville.

Kenny Boddye (D), Occoquan district supervisor on the Prince William County board, participated in the event to show his solidarity with the fight for racial justice.

"Part of this is a commemoration of the fact that we still need to face white supremacy in all its forms," Boddye said in an interview with Patch.

As originally conceived, Boddye noted, the event was supposed to be an anniversary march to Charlottesville in honor of Heather Heyer who was killed at the August 2017 white nationalist rally and the death of two Virginia state troopers who died in a helicopter crash in Albemarle County while monitoring the rally.

"It's important that we show that white supremacy has no home in Virginia and it especially has no home in the Manassas and Prince William area," said Boddye, who defeated incumbent Republican Supervisor Ruth Anderson last November in a close race. "Between Prince William County and Manassas and Manassas Park, we are the most diverse region in the commonwealth. One in four people is an immigrant."

Prince William County needs to be proactive in showing that its values are inclusion and standing unequivocally against white supremacy and white nationalism, he said.

In Prince William County, the school board voted last month to rename Stonewall Jackson High School near Manassas as Unity Reed High School to honor Arthur Reed, a long-time security assistant at the school, and Stonewall Middle School as Unity Braxton Middle to honor Celestine and Carroll Braxton, a local educator and her veteran husband.

Although the Prince William Board of County Supervisors has not instructed staff to begin a review of other public facilities and roads in the county that have Confederate names, Boddye said the board could soon issue an official directive to begin the process.

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved a motion last month to begin the process of inventorying all public places in the county that have Confederate names as a step toward renaming them. This includes all monuments, street names, recreation centers and parks, as well as all county buildings and properties.

The Prince William County board tipped in favor of the Democrats last fall, but politics in the county could swing back in favor of Republicans, Boddye noted.

"Instead of all these old, backwards ways of commemorating Confederates and only promoting the few as opposed to the whole," he said, "we hope that by showing what governance looks like from that perspective, we will win more people over and people will realize that we were being held back by that old ideology."