Charlottesville: Mother Says Heyer Died Standing up for People

Heather Heyer was killed Saturday when a gray sports car driven by accused white supremacist James Alex Fields, Jr. plowed into a crowd of anti-fascists who'd gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia to protest neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, skinheads, and others.

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The racists had converged on the city to rage against Charlottesville's plan to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and rename parks honoring Confederate leaders.

Heyer's longtime friend, Felicia Correa, spoke with her mother after the horrific event. She said her mother, while struggling with the sudden death of her daugther, said, “Heather died doing what she loved, standing up for people.”

By Monday morning, Correa, who'd started an online fundraising campaign, had raised over US$225,000 for Heyer's family.

Born in Charlottesville, Heyer was raised in a nearby town and graduated from William Monroe High School in Stanardsville.

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The 32-year-old paralegal wanted to send a clear message to the neo-Nazis that people abhor their views, Alfred Wilson, from the Miller Law Group said.

Heyer was "a very strong, very opinionated young woman" who "made known that she was all about equality," he told Reuters Sunday.

A big part of Heyer's job was to help people who were trying to avoid being evicted from their homes, or have their cars repossessed, or needed help paying medical bills, he said.

As a white woman, she thought it unfair that she enjoyed liberties that Wilson, as a Black man, did not, he said.

"If you walk into the store you may have people following you, and it's not fair," Wilson quoted Heyer as having said to him often.