More than 200 residents and activists gathered at the Oklahoma State Capitol Sunday evening to demonstrate solidarity in the wake of the deadly events in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Attendees held candles and brandished signs with phrases like “End White Supremacy,” “Hate Has No Home Here,” and “All You Need Is Love.”
“If we could we’d be in Charlottesville,” said Nancy Dwyer, a Moore resident who attended the event with her wife Lynn Dwyer. “But being in Oklahoma, people here need to see that there is a voice...that’s willing to say no to hatred and bigotry.”
The demonstration was organized by Indivisible Oklahoma, Black Lives Matter, The Women’s March, March on Oklahoma, Women United for Action, and others, according to the Facebook event.
“Oklahoma can’t remain silent,” said Beverly Tuberville, the founder of Indivisible Oklahoma. “Given what happened with the Murrah building, and all of the deaths that we had here because of someone who was involved in white supremacy, we have to speak up.”
Timothy McVeigh, who was put to death in 2001 for killing 168 people when he bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building April 19, 1995, is thought to have been influenced by anti-government and white nationalist movements.
A man plowed a car into a group of people protesting a white nationalist rally Saturday in Charlottesville, killing one woman, Heather Heyer, and injuring more than a dozen. Two state troopers, Pilot Lt. H. Jay Cullen and Trooper-Pilot Berke M.M. Bates were also killed when their helicopter crashed en route to the scene of the violence.
Tuberville said Oklahoma groups also held solidarity events Sunday in Tulsa, Stillwater and Ada.
Claire Donnelly is a reporter and morning host at KGOU. Follow her on Twitter @donnellyclairee.
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