News

August 18, 2017

Statement from Charlottesville (VA) Chamber

Our community was captured by racist, white supremacist domestic terrorists intent on injuring our community, our citizens and visitors who dared to challenge their venomous, toxic, message of hate and violence.

What we all saw, in disgust, was not- and is not – Charlottesville.

The outlander terrorists and their few (2?) local co-conspiring collaborators created the mayhem and combat witnessed here. Those images are not Charlottesville.

Our Charlottesville, Albemarle and the surrounding county communities are welcoming, diverse, inclusive, vibrant, tolerant and growing communities of constructive citizenship, enterprise, justice and opportunity. Our Chamber mourns the loss of Heather Heyer and State Troopers Jay Cullen and Berke Bates and sends our thoughts and prayers to their families.

Our Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce cares deeply about our community, our fellow citizens and our neighbors. For over a century our Chamber has actively helped to build this great community. It will not be destroyed by hate.

Earlier this June, our Chamber emphatically stated our categorical opposition to the KKK and its message of hate, hostility and division. Our Chamber fiercely opposes that message, which is fully embraced by other white supremacist, Nazi and Nazi-inspired organizations who invaded our community on Friday and Saturday. These groups are in fact, domestic terror groups that preach a message of divisiveness and hostility to threaten and fragment our community and indeed our nation.

Charlottesville will not be threatened. We are taking back our community from the purveyors of hate. Our Chamber joins will all our neighbors in that effort. In the words of Saint Francis of Assisi:

“Lord, help us become instruments of your peace; where there is hatred, let us sow love…where there is darkness, let us bring light…”

Please note that Charlottesville Regional Chamber President Tim Hulbert served as President of the Renssealer County Regional Chamber of Commerce from 1989-2001.