Visiting Charlottesville On The Day Biden-Harris Declared Victors Over Trump-Pence

 Really, it was not planned with politics in mind.  In Harrisonburg, VA we are an hour drive from Charlottesville, VA, and we have in the past maybe about 2 times every 3 months or so go over there to shop, eat, hang out, etc.  I used to go to UVa to the library or to see people I know, but all that has faded away to nothing over time.  In the pandemic, we have cut it way back, and it had been several months since we had been there.  But today the weather was nice, clear, and in the 70s, with the leaves just past max over there, so time to go, not to mention picking up some holiday stuff.  We had been planning it for several days, again, nothing to do with politics at all.

The word of the Biden-Harris victory came just before we left to go there, but we still did not think about political implications. Indeed we initially did some upscale grocery shopping elsewhere before we went down to the Mall, where 4th Street crosses, where Heather Heyer was killed by a white nationalist, and where the statues of both Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jonathan Jackson (that is what is no the base of it) still stand, probably to go in the not too distant future finally.

I had thought nothing of all that as got there, although we did see the statues as we drove up and discussed their status.  We parked several blocks away, but it was only as we got within a block of the Mall, oh about 3 PM, that it finally dawned on me.  People were randomly breaking out into cheers. Music was playing, and people were clearly celebrating vigorously and with great pleasure.  We would eat at a funky restaurant sitting on the Mall, and regularly people coming by would start shouting and cheering, and everybody would join in (or most of them anyway), and the place was packed on this gorgeous afternoon.  It was a massive and total spontaneous celebration.

Of course, as we first encountered the celebrations I remembered the significance of this particular location in all this, and how it was totally appropriate that it would be erupting in ongoing outbursts of loud celebration, people jumping up and down and dancing, with many musicians playing all kinds of music.  Heck, it was just plain great.  I loved it.

We did go to Fourth Street to the site that has since Heather Heyer died there has been festooned with many signs and objects commemorating her and what happened there.  I am also extremely aware of the fact that when Joseph R. Biden, Jr. announced his candidacy for the presidency, the main point of his talk, what he claimed motivated him more than anything else to run, was his disgust with Donald Trump’s characterization of the violent demonstrations by overt racists and neo-Nazis on August 17, 2017 that “there were good people on both sides” or words to that effect.  Biden said that this comment of Trump on the death of Heather Heyer on August 17, 2017 on Fourth Street in Charlottesville, Virginia motivated him to run for President of the United States of America, and given that, I am glad he has defeated the man who made those odious remarks, and I hope for the best not only for the USA but for the whole world, as I know that most people outside of the US have been hoping for the outcome that has arrived today.

My deepest regards and peace to all who read this.

Barkley Rosser