The number and exuberance of white nationalists who descended on Charlottesville sent emotional tremors through the nation. Some worried that this was the beginning of an expanding movement that would hearken us back to darker times.
And many felt that President Donald Trump’s comments only made matters worse. The president’s implied moral equivalency between racist elements and counter-protesters emboldened the former: David Duke, a white nationalist leader and former KKK grand wizard, thanked the president for his “honesty” and willingness to “condemn the leftist terrorists.”
As a civil rights scholar, however, this naked
