CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) – Family members of the young woman mowed down while protesting a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville used her funeral as a rallying cry, telling mourners the best way to honor Heather Heyer is to continue her fight against injustice.
“Let’s find that spark of conviction,” Heyer’s mother, Susan Bro, told the hundreds who packed a downtown theater to remember Heyer on Wednesday. “Find what’s wrong and say to yourselves, ‘What can I do to make a difference?'”
Heyer’s death on Saturday – and President Donald Trump’s insistence that “both sides” bear responsibility for the violence – continued to reverberate across the country, triggering fury among many Americans and soul-searching about the state of race relations in the U.S. The uproar has accelerated efforts in many cities to remove symbols of the Confederacy.
Heyer, 32, was eulogized as a woman with a powerful sense of fairness. The mourners, many of them wearing purple, her favorite color, applauded as her mother urged them to channel their anger not into violence but into “righteous action.”
“They tried to kill my child to shut her up. Well, guess what? You just magnified her,” said Bro, receiving a standing ovation from mourners inside the Paramount Theater.